The Embassy of Spain and Cankarjev Dom organize another Literary Dialogue: Slovenia – Spain. 

The aim of this event is to unite authors, critics, editors, journalists, literary agents, students and general public in order to exchange ideas and experiences on different topics, generating debate on innovative proposals. Ultimately, we aspire to bring both countries even closer and to get to know each other better through our literatures and intellectuals.

In this dialogue, moderated by writer Carlos Pascual, the important literary and current topics will be discussed by representatives of contemporary literature, the Slovenian writer Liu Zakrajšek and the Spanish writer Marta Carnicero. 

Simultaneous interpretation in Slovene and Spanish will be provided.  
 

Prof. Dr. Marcus Stiglegger teaches film and cultural studies at the university of Freiburg and the Muenster School of Design. He received his doctorate with the dissertation Sadiconzista - Fascism and Sexuality in Film and habilitated in 2005 with the monograph Ritual and Seduction, in which he developed the seduction theory of film. He writes regularly for film magazines such as film-Dienst and epd Film and founded the magazine Ikonen. He is also a musician, writes screenplays and runs the podcast Projektionen. With the participation of: Anuška Delić, Dr. Gregor Moder, Bernhard Winkler, M.A.

Anuška Delić is an investigative and data journalist who leads a unique two-headed microregional nonprofit investigative journalism center, Oštro in Slovenia and Oštro in Croatia. She is also a Balkans regional editor with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
She established “The MEPs Project” which brought together journalists that represented all 28 EU member states. As a member of ground-breaking global investigations, such as the Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, FinCEN Files and The Laundromats she is a co-recipient of several awards, including the Pulitzer Prize on Explanatory Reporting.
 
Dr. Gregor Moder is philosopher and scholar. He studied philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana and received his doctorate in 2009 with a comparative thesis on Hegel and Spinoza. During his studies, he also worked as an actor and as the artistic director of theater projects. He spent research stays at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht and at the Universities of Cambridge and Princeton. Moder is a lecturer at his alma mater and specializes in political philosophy, metaphysics, ideological criticism and the philosophy of art.
 
Bernhard Winkler, M.A. is a DAAD lecturer in the German Program. His research focuses on German literature in Romanticism and Modernity. His current work focuses on erotic discourses in contemporary literature. He studied at the University of Regensburg, the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon and the University of Colorado at Boulder where he also taught as Teaching Assistant. He worked for two years as DAAD assistant at ELTE Budapest before starting his DAAD lectorate at University of Ljubljana.

In our project, we want to analyse and reveal the roots of new right-wing thinking in order to assess and deconstruct the manipulative power of these media that threaten democracy. Our guest Marcus Stiglegger is an expert in film studies and popular culture studies. Since propaganda and populism today are constructed and disseminated particularly through images, memes, films and other pop-cultural products, it is necessary to analyse the myths and methods used by the Identitarian movement, for example, to make their worldview attractive to young people. Awareness of the seductive structures of propaganda and populism should provide guests with politically relevant knowledge in order to question ideologies and to recognize and expose practical pop-cultural propaganda strategies in everyday life. Especially in light of recent political developments, disinformation strategies will be exposed that blur the difference between fact and fiction, thereby appealing to an audience susceptible to the totalitarian structure of such propaganda.

By exposing the pop-cultural mythical roots, the aim is to sensitize the audience to the manipulative tendencies of new-right ideologies that use social media in a global context to recruit followers.

In cooperation with the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Austrian Cultural Forum, and Goethe-Institut Ljubljana.

Featuring: Nadia Roncelli, Martina Kafol, Hanzi Filipič
Hosted by: Matej Krajnc

Language. Word. Book. On the International Mother Language Day, we are hosting three renowned personalities who have played a key role in shaping Slovenia’s transborder publishing landscape for many years.  

The event will be held in Slovenian, without translation.
 

Organised by the Slovene Writers’ Association
Readings by: Mojca Andrej, Sanja Rozman, Barbara Hanuš, Igor Karlovšek, Jasmin B. Frelih
Hosted by: Meta Kušar
Musical accompaniment: Matej Krajnc

In keeping with tradition, the new members of the Slovene Writers' Association have the floor on Prešeren Day. 

The event will be held in Slovenian, without translation.

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.  

Barbara Rigler graduated in Comparative Literature and Sociology of Culture and completed her Master's degree at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana. She is a literary producer at the Republic of Slovenia Public Fund for Cultural Activities and the editor-in-chief of Mentor magazine. Her professional work focuses on writers of all ages writing in Slovenian and in their mother tongues.

Aleksandra Gačić is a literary critic whose work focuses mainly on African literature, motifs of foreignness in Slovenian literature, literalised themes of racism, otherness, migration, etc. She launched Iniciativa Afrike, a literary and performance initiative, with Maša Kagao Knez and Dalanda Diallo in 2021.

Marijanca Ajša Vižintin is a research associate at the Slovenian Migration Institute, ZRC SAZU, author of several scientific articles and the scientific monograph Intercultural Education: the Integration of Children of Immigrants (2017). She is a co-editor (2013–14 and from 2024) of the scientific journal Dve domovini/Two Homelands.

Hosted by: Selma Skenderović

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.  

Žanina Mirčevska was born in 1967 in Skopje, where she graduated from the Academy of Dramatic Arts and then continued her postgraduate studies in dramaturgy in Ljubljana. She is a dramaturge working on various productions in Slovenia and abroad, as well as an author of numerous essays on playwriting and a prolific playwright.

Ana Lasić is a screenwriter and playwright. She graduated in dramaturgy in 1999 from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, where she worked as a dramaturg and critic. Her first feature film, Ruševine (with director Janez Burger), won the Best Slovenian Film Award at the 2004 Slovenian Film Festival. Her book Intuitivna scenaristika was published by the Republic of Slovenia Public Fund for Cultural Activities in 2022.

Ivana Djilas was born in 1976 in Belgrade and has lived and worked in Slovenia since 1999. She is a theatre director, writer and journalist. Known for her distinctive poetics, Djilas has directed around fifty different performances in various Slovenian theatres. She has received several awards for her work in theatre. She wrote the acclaimed novel Hiša and a unique collection of autobiographical essayistic stories A si lahko vsaj enkrat tiho.

Hosted by: Selma Skenderović

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
 

Widad Tamimi (1981) is an Italian-born writer of Jewish-Palestinian descent. A political scientist, she holds a Master's degree in International Law. Le rose del vento is her second novel (in Slovenian published by Sanje).

Said Khatibi is an Algerian writer. He studied in Algeria and France. He has published four novels, translations of Kateb Yacine's poetry, and an anthology of Algerian short stories. He is a recipient of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award, the Arab Journalism Award and the Ibn Batuta Prize for Travel Writing.

Hosted by: Selma Skenderović

In English, with simultaneous translation into Slovenian.
 

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.  

Adriana Kuči is a journalist and author from Sarajevo, who has lived and worked in Slovenske Konjice for the last few years. Her first novel in Slovenian, Ime mi je Sarajevo, was published by Litera in 2022. Her second novel, Noč, ko je preplavala reko, was published by Litera in 2024.

Snježana Vračar Mihelač was born in Pula. She is actively involved in the Slovenian and post-Yugoslav literary scenes. She has won several awards, including the first prize for poetry at the regional Ulaznica competition. Her first published book is Kad zatvorim oči vidim modro.

Alena Begić was born in 1997 in Germany. A PhD student in Philosophy, she writes in Bosnian, her mother tongue; her first collection of stories, Dan za ispravljanje, was published by Durieux.

Host: Selma Skenderović
 

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.  

Svetlana Slapšak was born in 1948 in Belgrade and has a PhD in Classics. A critic, scholar and anthropologist, Slapšak has authored numerous works in the fields of anthropology, linguistics, classical studies, gender studies, Balkan studies and comparative studies. 

Lidija Dimkovska (1971, Skopje) has lived in Ljubljana since 2001. She has published seven collections of poetry, four novels, an American diary and a collection of short stories translated into seventeen foreign languages, and edited four anthologies. She is a recipient of numerous awards, most recently the Macedonian Novel of the Year and the regional Štefica Cvek Prize for her novel EMŠO.

Miomira Šegina was born in Srebrenica, grew up in Tuzla, and has lived and worked in Slovenia since 1980. She writes short stories, journalistic articles, reflections and travelogues. She has written three plays, a collection of short stories (Skozi rdečo, 2009), as well as bilingual books Dve drami – dva jezika (2012) and Skrivnost Blejskega jezera (2022).

Hosted by: Selma Skenderović