Nights of Literature
The bond between Eros and literature is as old as these two concepts and it is the basis of pleasure and the real human need for beauty. When I received the invitation for the literary selector’s position of this year’s edition of Casanovafest, I was, to say the least, confused but, honestly, I was scared too. This seemed to be a huge burden for somebody who is still as shy and introverted as a boy. But it was challenging to imagine Casanova during his walks through the streets of Vrsar, to think of that beautiful town in Istria in the summer, with freedom lurking behind every corner, and to think about my colleagues and their texts in which somehow Eros has an important and inevitable place. I decided to choose my friends and writers who I greatly esteem: Roman Simić Bodrožić, Marinela, Kemal Mujičić Artnam and Pavle Goranović. Of course, there will also be a frequent guest of the festival, Drago Glamuzina, with his new book of erotic poems, which were wonderfully combined with the photographs by Stanko Abadžić to form a luxurious and limited edition.
See you at the literary evenings!
Ivica Prtenjača
Coordinator of the literary programme
Marinela
Born in 1971 in Zagreb. Since 1988, under the pseudonym Marinela, she has been publishing prose and poetry in various magazines (Quorum, Oko, Vijenac, Revija, Rijek, Libra, The Bridge, Libra Libera, Zarez, Lettre internationale, Republika, Morsko prase, Ars, Tema, etc.).
1996 A Lift Without a Cabin, stories, Meandar, Zagreb
2002 Do you smoke?, stories, Meandar, Zagreb
2011 I Don’t Wish You a Nice Day, poetry, Meandarmedia, Zagreb
Kemal Mujičić Artnam
Kemal Mujičić Artnam was born on 14th February 1960 in Turbe near Travnik. In 1980 he arrived to Zagreb, where he enrolled in the Faculty of Textile Technology. After having participated in various literary forums and having published his work in relevant literary magazines, he published his first collection of poems in 1994. Since then he has regularly presented new works on Croatian Radio’s Radio Station 3, literary festivals, public events and literary magazines. His poems have been included into seven anthologies and two relevant overviews of the contemporary Croatian poetry The Passion of Difference – Dark Sound of Emptiness and Off-line as well as in several collections. His radio novel in five sequels, based on the novel Five Litres of Petrol, had its premiere in late 2009. Some of his poems and stories have been translated into German, English, Spanish, Polish, Slovenian and Macedonian. He is a member of the Croatian Writers’ Association. He lives in Zagreb.
He published the following works: On Fridays After Having Fish, poems, Meandar, 1994; Dance, poems, Meandar, 1996; Zoo Zone, poems, Meandar, 2000; Acceleration, prose poems, Naklada Breza, 2002; Moonlighting, stories, Meandar, 2004; Five Litres of Petrol, novel, Naklada Breza, 2006; Time for Love, Meandarmedia, 2010.
Roman Simić Bodrožić
Roman Simić Bodrožić was born in 1972 in Zadar. He is the author of In the Moment Like in the Wilderness; poetry, 1996, with T. Zajec and V. Grgurić, A Place Where We Are Going to Spend the Night; stories, 2000 and What Are We Falling In Love With, 2005. He has won the Jutarnji list Award for the Best Prose Book, the second Ranko Marinković Award for the Best Short Story, the second Goran for Young Poets Award and a Kiklop for the Editor of the Year. His works have been translated into about ten languages. He edits books, magazines, selections and anthologies and has been organising the Festival of the European Short Story for the last ten years.
Drago Glamuzina
Drago Glamuzina was born in Vrgorac. He graduated in literature and philosophy from the University of Zagreb. His work experience includes working as a journalist in Vjesnik and as an editor in Nacional. Since 2003 he has been the editor-in-chief for the publishing company Profil. He is one of the founders as well as the programme director of the Zagreb Book Fair. His poetry books Butchers and Is That All have won various awards and have been published in Germany, Macedonia, Slovenia and Serbia. He has been included in about ten anthologies of contemporary Croatian poetry. Together with Roman Simić he published a panorama of Croatian erotic story Libido.hr. Two years ago he published a novel infused with eroticism, Three, which won the T-portal Award for that year’s best novel. It has been published in Serbia and Macedonia.
At last year’s edition of Casanovafest, he presented his award-winning novel Three whereas this year he is going to promote his poetry and photography monograph Alone InThose Woods, in which Glamuzina’s fifty poems were accompanied by Stanko Abadžić’s fifty black-and-white photographs of the female body.
Pavle Goranović
Pavle Goranović was born in 1973 in Nikšić, Montenegro. He graduated in philosophy. He writes poetry, prose and literary reviews and is the editor of the magazine for literature, culture and social issues ARS.
Goranović published poetry books: Ornamentation of the Night (1994), Reading the Silence (poetry selection, Zagreb, 2009) and Cinober (2009). He is the author of various selections of contemporary Montenegrin literature in foreign magazines as well as of the literary-historical monograph Tin Ujević and Montenegro (Zagreb, 2008).
His literary works have been translated into English, Italian, French, Slovenian, Slovak, Macedonian, Polish, Swedish, Albanian, Hebrew, and more. He has been a part of numerous poetry and short story anthologies as well as of the anthology New European Poets, published by Graywolf Press Published, USA, in 2008.
The following books were published as special editions: The Book of Mirages (2006) in Slovenian, the poetry selection in Macedonian Angels of Indifference Are Coming (2009), and Reading of Silence in English.
He is the winner of the Risto Ratković Award for the best poetry book in 2009 and of the Vito Nikolić Award for the best Montenegrin lyric poet in 2010.
