Who's Writing Out There 2026/27

15 September 2026 – Stanislava Chrobakova Repar and Aljoša Pužar, moderated by Selma Skenderović 
15 October 2026 – Natalija Milovanović and Tanja Božić, moderated by Biljana Žikić 
16 November 2026 – Igor Divjak and Irena Urbič, moderated by Biljana Žikić 
17 December 2026 – Zlatko Kraljić, Sefadin Korać and Ismet Bekrić, moderated by Selma Skenderović (Bosnian)
13 January 2027 – John Philips, Jonathan Lewis, Erica Johnson Debeljak, moderated by Selma Skenderović (English) 
17 February 2027 – Barbara Skubic, Petra Amalia Bachmann and Katja Zakrajšek, moderated by Selma Skenderović 
10 March 2027 – Selma Skenderović, moderated by Biljana Žikić 

The acclaimed programme Who’s Writing Out There, a series of talks on immigrant literature launched in 2025, continues in the 2026/27 season. 
“While contemporary immigrant literature is already a well-developed genre in other parts of the world, contributing significantly to the development of multicultural reality, not merely in declarative terms, but also in practice, this type of literary theme is developing slowly and only fragmentarily in Slovenia,” wrote literary historian Aleksandra Gačić. 

According to Maruša Mugerli, in 2008 there were more than one hundred and twenty immigrant authors living in Slovenia, mainly from the countries of the former Yugoslavia. In recent years, however, an increasing number of writers from other parts of the world have been immigrating to Slovenia.

The literary series Who’s Writing Out There will focus on the conditions for creative work in Slovenia, how these authors get published, the languages in which they write, whether they participate in Slovenia’s main literary evenings and festivals, their views on immigrant literature, the awarding of literary prizes in our country, and related topics. The author and host of the series is Selma Skenderović.

Selma Skenderović (2001) is an MA student of Slovenian and comparative literature, president of Young PEN Slovenia, and editor of Mentor magazine.
At the age of nineteen, she became the youngest author to win the Urška 2020 Young Literature Festival. Her short fiction debut Zakaj molčiš, Hava? (“Why Are You Silent, Hava?”, 2021) has been translated into several languages. She won the Blisk Award for Best Poem in both 2020 and 2021. In 2022, the Slovenian Book Agency selected her debut book for the Readers of Europe project. That same year, she was nominated for the Mira Prize, while her book was nominated for Best Literary Debut. In April 2023, she received the Best Young Author Award at the Sarajevo Book Fair. In 2024, her novel In če vsi pozabijo was published by Cankarjeva založba. In 2025, the Slovenian Book Agency selected the novel for translation at the 15th International Translation Seminar of Slovenian Literature.

Biljana Žikić, a freelance cultural professional, holds a PhD in media studies and a BA in philology. She works at the intersection of radio programme curatorship, journalism, cultural production, publishing, research, and activism. For more than a decade, she has co-created the shows Kontrola leta and Sami naši on Radio Študent and Radio Slovenija, respectively. As a producer, organiser, and moderator of cultural events and projects, she collaborates with all major Slovenian cultural institutions, especially the Public Fund for Cultural Activities (JSKD). She is an editor for the multilingual publishing programme of KC Danilo Kiš and the journal Paralele (JSKD). She also writes poetry, published in Slovenian and regional anthologies and on literary online portals. As head of the Danilo Kiš Cultural Centre, she has been developing a support infrastructure for multilingual and multicultural authors for many years, promoting cultural practices that transcend national and linguistic borders.

The project is a co-production of Cankarjev dom and the Danilo Kiš Cultural Centre, a non-governmental institute that runs cultural programmes in the public interest.

Video recordings of 2025 events are available for viewing at the YouTube channel of the Danilo Kiš Cultural Centre: https://www.youtube.com/@kulturnicenterdanilokis 
Supported by the Municipality of Ljubljana.

Founder and principal funder of Cankarjev dom's Arts and Culture programme: Ministry of Culture 

*The title of the series of talks on immigrant literature is borrowed from the title of the article "Kdo neki tam piše? V Frankfurt brez priseljenskih avtorjev in avtoric iz nekdanje skupne države" by Biljana Žikić, published on MMC RTV SLO on 5 October 2023.