Sara Afzali, Mohamad Abdul Munem, Carlos Pascual

Immigrant authors will address the importance of immigrant literature, the conditions for creativity in Slovenia and their participation in Slovenia's main literary events and festivals.  

Sara Afzali is an Iranian poet, journalist, photographer and visual artist based in Slovenia. She was born a year before the Islamic Revolution. A year and a half after the revolution, the eight-year war with Iraq began. She actually spent her entire childhood in the maelstrom of war. She says that her home is Ljubljana, where she can rest, read, write, think, own books, a notebook and pen, a camera, a bed, the clothes she likes and shoes she can walk in.

Mohamad Abdul Munem (1965) is a Syrian publisher and writer of Palestinian descent. He used to have a publishing house in Aleppo. He published works by authors from around the world, also ones that were not close to Assad’s regime, which is why his life was endangered on several occasions. In 2016 he immigrated to Europe. Adopting Slovenia as his new home, he soon started to participate in cultural activities in Ljubljana. He recently published a trilingual poetry collection Enaindvajset žensk iz Ljubljane (Twenty-one Women from Ljubljana, 2018) and is also writing new works. A book about his life story, Trije spomini – Med Hajfo, Alepom in Ljubljano (2019), was written by Andraž Rožman. He received the international PONT prize in 2024.

Carlos Pascual (México City, 1964) studied literature, theatre and film in Mexico and the USA. He lives and works in Ljubljana, writes columns for the Dnevnik daily and publishes his stories, essays and crónicas in various literary magazines and online cultural media. In Slovenia, he has written a collection of essays O služkinjah, visokih petah in izgubljenih priložnostih (2015), an essayistic travelogue Debeli zidovi, majhna okna (2017), and a book of crónicas Nezakonita melanholija (2020), which won the 2021 Novo mesto Short Award for best short-story collection.

Hosted by: Selma Skenderović