Creative Europe

Sanja Savić SHORT & FEATURE FILMS: Dekodiranje (Decoding, screenplay, dir. Milan Marić), U prolazu (Passage, screenplay, dir. Sonja Antanasijević), Sloboda ili strip (Freedom or Comic Book, screenplay consultant, dir. Kosta Ristić), Pola i po (Half and a Half, screenplay, dir. Miroslav Maletić), Bubamara (Ladybird, screenplay and directed by), Kestenje (Marrons, screenplay, dir. Jana Vuković), Kako mravi i krave utiču na ženski život (Ants’ and Cows’ Influence on Woman’s Life, screenplay, animation, directed by), two short interactive films (as a screenwriter), Letnja škola (Summer School, screenplay, dir. Nataša Janković), Vitraž u D-molu (Vitrage in D-minor, co-author with Vladimir Radovanović).
Features: Naši očevi, majke I njihova djeca (Our Fathers, mothers and Their Chldren 2017, written and directed by), Priča o Miki mravu (Story about Mika the Ant, animation feature)
BOOKS & PLAYS: Kad žirafa progovori (When a Giraffe Starts Talking, short stories, published in 2010. by Raška škola), Vrijeme vašara (Celebrations' Time, short stories, published in 2013. by OrionArt), Umri da ti kažem (Die – if You Want to Know, play, in process), Studiranje Šabrola (Chabrol Studies, anthology of students' essays, co-editor and co-author), Neoštrine (Out of Focus, published by Arete 2016), Srebrni car (Silver Emperor, published by CZK Kučevo) Birds and Other Plays (published by NB Pale, 2019), Stranger’s Bone (Tuđa kost, published by Arete 2019); Published or staged works - plays: Kod šejtana (Devil's Guest, Scena, Novi Sad), Nevena (short story, antology of optimistic works Antidepresiv ), Samostalnost žena u filmovima Kloda Šabrola (Independent Women in Claude Chabrol’s Movies, Škrip, online magazine, article); Narcissus and Echo – prehistory (stage reading on Sterijino pozorje in Novi Sad and Teden Slovenske Drame, Kranj), : Kod šejtana (Devil's Guest, UK Vuk Belgrade), Crvena kapa i vukova šapa (Red Hood and Wolf’s Paw, Akademija 28 Belgrade), Srebrni car (Silver Emperor, currently in production in Puls teatar); Plays for radio: Letovanje na jugu (South Vacation, dramatization of Ivo Andrić’s story, Radio Belgrade, 2010), Irodijada (Herodias, original play, Radio Belgrade, 2011), Kako je mrav upoznao samog sebe (How the Ant Met Himself, Radio Beograd 2019)
“Neoštrine“ is a short novel by Sanja Savić Milosavljević, which also may be conserned as a short story book. The ledaing character Ines, is a 30-year old woman, living in Netherlands, but having origins in Bosnia and Herzegovina. While trying to solve her LGBT identity problems, she decides to visit her aunt in Sarajevo. At the same time, this book raises the issue of LBGT identity, post-war trauma and migration of people from the former Yugoslavia, and that is why we have selected it as a book for translation into a big language. We chose German because we already cooperate with the Noise Mobility Festival and the Balkantage Festival, which bring together German and post-Yugoslav audiences.

Nathalie Skowronek was born in Brussels in 1973. After studying literature, she worked in publishing before going into womens wear for 7 years. She returned to literature in 2004 when she created the editorial collection La Plume et le Pinceau for Complexe publishing. At the age of 37, she published her first novel, Karen et moi (Arléa, 2011), the first volume of a family trilogy which takes the reader from the Polish shtetls on the road to Auschwitz. Two novels, Max, en apparence (Arléa, 2013) and Un monde sur mesure (Grasset, 2017), followed. In 2015, she published an essay inspired by her personal story entitled La Shoah de Monsieur Durand (Gallimard, 2015). Since 2016, she has been teaching in the Contemporary Writing Centre of La Cambre/École nationale supérieure des arts visuels. She also facilitates a writing workshop for the Antonin Artaud Club, a day centre for adults with psychological disabilities. EUPL winner for la carte des regrets.

Book „La carte des regrets”: Suicide, murder, or accidental death? The circumstances surrounding the death of famed publisher Véronique Verbruggen on a Cévennes mountain trail remain a mystery… Two men ponder this and share the same pain: her husband, ophthalmologist Daniel Meyer, and her lover, Titus Séguier, a filmmaker who never gave up hope they might one day live together.
For Daniel, nothing had ever disturbed the twenty years of marital bliss he shared with his wife – a woman he loved unfailingly. As for Titus, stripped of the woman he loved, he now hesitates between remaining silent out of a sense of propriety or completing a cinematic “loving will” by continuing a film project he began with Véronique before her death.
And then there’s Mina, Véronique’s daughter, who was born out of a first love. She also has her share of questions. Too many innuendos and clues find no place in the family puzzle... Who was her mother, really? Asking Daniel, her step-father, for answers would be too painful for him... So, Mina seeks out Titus Séguier and quickly discovers her mother was not at all the woman she believed her to be – a woman who was torn between two men who could not be more different from one another.

Jana Šramkova is a Czech writer, one of the most distinctive talents in Czech literature of recent years, she was awarded the Jiří Orten Award for her debut work. She was born in Vysoké Mýto on 31 March 1982 and now lives in Prague. She studied at the Evangelical Theological Seminary and at the Josef Škvorecký Literary Academy. Her debut novel Hruškadóttir (Peardóttir) was a product of her Academy work under the guidance of author Daniela Fischerová. She also writes for children and publishes in cultural magazines.

The novella „Peardóttir” was warmly received by readers and critics alike. The narrator is Veronika, a student of Scandinavian studies, who is “adopted” by her friend Madla’s ideal family. The father, Šimon, is suffering and trying to cope with a cruel loss in life, and Veronika is his guide. As a generation younger she comes in between Šimon and his wife, she herself feels the absence of her own father who before disappearing from her life planted a pear tree, she is the daughter of Pear, hence Peardóttir. The panel for the Jiří Orten Award, which awarded the young author the 2009 prize for Peardóttir.

Ingelin Rossland is a Norwegian writer and journalist, who debuted in 1998 with her novel for youth Viss du vil. The central theme of her books is finding herself and her place in a chaotic world. Furthermore, the relationship with parents, friends, intoxication, sex and violence against themselves and others.
Røssland’s books have been translated into German, French, English and Faroese.

The novel „Hand grenade apple” follows the life of a girl who, from her somewhat boring and monotonous life in a family house, goes to the city to study. There, she meets another girl and their relationship leads her into a series of problematic situations, from one that includes violence and vandalism, to one that treats drug involvement and addiction.
In our country, violence among young people and vandalism are the way in which young people express their rebellion, lack of understanding of the environment and it is a way for them to stand out of the crowd. This is a topic that is talked about a lot, but it seems as if the way of communication is not on the right line. It is important to us that there is literature with which young people will be able to identify and that through such a translated novel, they will see their values and the world to which they belong, but also find answers to their questions.

Liliana Corobca is a Moldovan-Romanian literary scholar and writer. She studied literature from 1992 to 1997 at the State University of Moldova, after which she continued her studies in Romania and received her doctorate from the University of Bucharest in 2001.
Since 2002 she has worked at the George Calinescu Institute for Literary History and Theory in Bucharest. From 2004 to 2007 she taught post-war Romanian exile literature at the University of Ploiești. In 2004 she received the Prometheus Prize from the Moldovan Writers’ Union.

The novel „Kinderland” is about a twelve-year old Cristina who is forced to become the “mother” of her two younger siblings when their parents go to work abroad in search money. Through the eyes of the little girl we discover the universe of a contemporary Moldovan village, populated mostly by children and old people. Here the children learn to survive on their own, while waiting for their most precious dream to be fulfilled: the return of their parents. Cristina speaks about cruelty and tenderness, about pain and comfort, despair and hope – about the country of mature children, whose voices are not listened to by anyone.
The topic of young people growing up alone while their parents spend time earning money and building careers is not one that is often treated, even though it is extremely important. Children and young people who are forced to grow up abruptly and to start behaving as adults ahead of time are a big problem in our surrounding, but also in other areas, and that is why the significance of this book and its oversight is multiple.

Cvetka Sokolov is a Slovenian youth writer, poet and higher education teacher, she writes mainly for children and youth. Her stories, poems and paintings have been published regularly in children’s magazines since 2003. She has written some screenplays for the children’s and youth program.
She began to write down fairy tales and realistic stories from the everyday lives of children, which she invented on various occasions and told her sons. The main inspiration for her stories for children was mostly her family life, especially while her sons were still young, and the adventures that found their way into her literary texts are sometimes close to real events and sometimes entirely fictional. In 2013, her first youth novel, What Doesn’t Kill, was published, for which she was nominated for a Blue Bird Award.
Sokolov writes children’s stories, poems and riddles with motifs from nature and everyday life, as well as problematic youth novels. In the works for children, she describes the small joys of children, as well as the hardships, fears and worries that the child overcomes with the support of adults. In youth problem novels, she focuses on topics that excite and encourage reflection, such as sexual abuse. Her youth novel In the Wrong Story (2017) was selected as a first-year student for the 2019/20 school year as part of the “Growing Up with a Book” project.

The novel „V napačni zgodbi” describes a secret emotional relationship between a high school girl and an older married man. The focus is on the topics of growing up, dealing with one’s own sexuality and the way the body develops, but also the topic of shooting and photography, and then blackmail with those photos and emotional manipulation. This was exactly the segment that swayed us to choose the book, as the topic of parallel life in the digital world is very current and present among young people. Receiving content that comes through the Internet distances young people from books as a source of information, but for us this topic is a space where we can use innovative professional practices and act within the promotion on the social media where young people are, and speak their language.

Jana Frey German writer, born in 1969. She started writing when she was only five years old. She studied literature, history and arts.
Jana Frey has published numerous books for children and young adults and has been awarded several times. Many of her books have been translated into various languages. Her literary range covers picture books and novels for early readers as well as novels for YA-readers.
Jana Frey succeeds in combining true background stories with fictitious elements – her nomination for the “German Adolescents Literature Award” (Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis) with her title “Downward Flight” (Höhenflug abwärts) bears evidence of her talent. In spring 2006 her well-researched and captivatingly written historic novel “Prügelknabe” attracted the critics’ attention.

The novel „Lass mich glücklich sein!” follows the relationship of two best friends who have been inseparable since early childhood, until a serious drug problem between them emerges. As one goes deeper and deeper into the world of addiction, the other falls in love for the first time and needs the support of a friend who is unable to be there for her.
On the one hand, the problem that this book treats is extremely important, and unfortunately always current among the young. It was extremely important to us, in the context of literary translations and literature, that one of the most famous books dealing with the problem of drug addiction among young people, “Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo”, was a book that came from the German-speaking area and we thought that in the context of book promotion this would be a good commentary, but also treatment of the topic from a new, contemporary angle.

Maria Teresa Maia Gonzales Portuguese writer, she studied at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon and was a Portuguese teacher from 1982 to 1997. She has published many books, including Gaspar & Mariana, A Fonte dos Segredos, O Guarda da Praia, O Incendiário Misterioso, Cartas de Beatriz, and is the author of the Profissão: Adolescente collection, with 13 books and over 300,000 copies sold. Together with Maria do Rosário Pedreira, she is also a co-author of O Clube das Chaves, a collection of 21 books, which have been adapted to a television series. Her most successful book is A Lua de Joana, with 220,000 copies sold (translated into German, Bulgarian, Chinese, Spanish and Albanian).
In 2016, she was a candidate for the Swedish literary prize Astrid Lindgren (ALMA), which distinguishes literature and illustration for children and the promotion of reading.

The novel „Dietas e Borbulhas” deals with the relationship of two sisters, one of whom at the end of her puberty begins to gain weight, to be unattractive to herself and has a problematic relationship with her own body, which leads her to a bad mental state and finally bulimia. At the same time, the other sister, thanks to her attractive body, physical appearance and the way she treats herself in relation to the environment, is one of the most popular and attractive people. This situation inevitably brings them into a conflict situation.
With this novel within the project, our goal is to emphasize the global problem of too much focus on appearance and the demands that society, media and peers place on young girls. This is a topic that is not talked about enough, especially in literature, so the translation of the book can have a great influence on the perspective in relation to the topic among young girls.

Nadia Terranova is an Italian author who graduated philosophy, and has a PhD in modern history. She writes for various newspapers, such as Repubblica, Internazionale i Il Foglio. She is a professor at Scuola del libro di Roma. Being one of the most prominent modern Italian writers, she has won many awards, such as Mariele Ventre Award, Laura Orvieto Award, Oscar Primi Junior, Mondadori, she was a finalist for the Premio Cento and the Premio Gigante delle Langhe.
For her novel "Gli anni al contrario", Terranova received many prestigious awards, such as Premio narrativa Bergamo 2017, Premio baguta opera prima 2016, Premio Viadana 2016, Premio Viadana Giovani 2016, Premio adota un esordiente 2016, Premio bagutta opera prima 2016, Premio Fiesole narrativa under 40 2015, Premio Brancati Zafferana 2015, Narrativa Premio grotte della gurfa 2015. This novel was amazingly received by the audience and by the critics, the numerous awards of which elevated it to the peaks of modern literary production.

The novel "Gli anni a contrario" is set in Italy of the 1970s, also named "Anni di piombo" or Lead Years, marked by violence on the streets, terrorism, shootings and bombings. It is temporally dislocated and it follows the thread of family memories, which carry the image of historical events in Italy in the 1970s, and a bridge that connects a childhood that no longer exists, growing up, and, foremost, the life story of Aurora as a person that she was and that she now became, representing unification and sedimentation of more persons in one, connection with family, connection with territory and language. A personal story of two souls who cannot escape and survive the utopia of the world that needs salvation.

Zadie Smith is a British novelist, writer of essays and short stories. Her debut novel, "White Teeth" (2000) immediately became a bestseller, sold in countless number of copies and very well received by the critics. Smith graduated English language and literature at Cambridge University, and is currently teaching creative writing at the University of New York. For her third book, "Oh, Beauty" in 2006, she won Orange Prize for Fiction and Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. In 2012, for her novel "NW", she received awards Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize and the Women's Prize for Fiction.

The novel "Swing Time" was long-listed for Man Booker prize. It follows the destinies of a white and a black girl who met in London. From the two of them, only one has talent, while the other has a clear idea what is black music, what is a culture that drives the music. "Swing Time" tells a story about friendship that was never forgotten. It is a novel about love and friendship, about how much our origin influences our interests and our development, as well as about how we can make an impact on all that and become aware of that path. Moving from London to South Africa brings an interesting narrative plain, which includes seemingly opposite cultures, and takes it back to the primal origin and (un)forgotten motherland. Taiye Selasi described for Guardian this novel as the best author's novel so far.

Kirmen Uribe is a Basque writer who studied Basque philology at the Basque Country–Gasteiz University and graduated Comparative Literature in Trento, Italy. Uribe won many relevant literary awards such as Becerro de Bengoa Prize 1995, for his book of essays. In 2009, he won a Spanish Literature Prize for the novel "Bilbao–New York–Bilbao". For the same novel he won Critics’ Prize for a novel written in Basque in 2008. Kirmen Uribe is one of the most famous Basque authors of the middle generations, and as such he was a guest of distinguished literary festivals, such as New York’s PEN World Voices Festival, the Berlin International Poetry Festival, the Taipei International Poetry Festival, the Manchester (England) Literature Festival, the Bordeaux ‘¡Mira!’ festival, the Vilenica (Slovenia) International Festival.

The novel "La hora de despertarnos juntos" tells about the refugeeship of the heroine who has, after the war in her homeland (Ondarroa), settled in France, where she met her husband with whom she traveled Europe in search for cultural identity or, rather, in a constant flight not to remain in a country where she didn't feel she belonged, finishing her journey in Venezuela. However they still return to Europe, in the midst of the Second World War, the biggest crisis the continent has ever encountered, trying to repair her destroyed identity matrixes, even by entering the war. The author's skill and an eye for capturing the human soul and its adjustments during changes of social constructs make this novel emotional in the best sense of the word. The author colored the historical approach to the writing with emotional approach to a person and thus painted a destiny of a human being thrown away from its country into a seismic area of the whole continent.

Kaja Malanowska (1974) is a Polish author, columnist of one of the most prestigious newsletter, Krytyka Polityczna. She got her PhD at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. For her debut novel, "Drobne szaleństwa dnia codziennego" (Small Madnesses of Everyday Life) she was nominated for Culture Guarantee of TVP Kultura in 2011. Continuing her writing career with a novel "Look at me, Klara!", she was shortlisted for the most acclaimed Polish literary award, Nike, in 2013, while a year before she was nominated for "Polityka" award. Malanowska is a greatly accepted author among the audience, so it is our wish to present her writing to the Serbian readers for the first time.

The collection of stories, "Imigracje" is prose of unique atmosphere, perceptive observation, and psychological subtlety. Sensitive intovertity, which makes the whole world look psychedelically, sometimes hurts, sometimes embraces, but it is always an accessible world. The author's language exists because it is experienced.
"Imigracje" are stories about different dimensions of alienness. The life in USA, the Indian wedding, the tourist trip to Turkey. Asian transvestite, eccentric father, lonely immigrant, closed in her own world. Obsessions, depressions, various nuances of being lost and maladjusted. Encounters with the foreign and experiences of what it's like to be a foreigner. "Imigracje" are true stories because they happened, and fiction in which we find a psychological truth.
Immigrations, because no matter whether we travel somewhere or stay home, it is always the most interesting to penetrate in one's own interior. It is precisely from it that we cannot migrate. Told in nine different ways, egocentric tale about what is an internal migration, how much it hurts and tortures. Malanowska divided her texts into two groups. One group describes what actually happened, and the other tells about entirely fictive events.

Jasmin B. Frelih is a Slovenian writer of the younger generation who has won many awards for his work. His first novel was awarded by a Slovenian Book Fair as a debut novel, and was shortlisted for Slovenian award "Kresnik". Frelih was selected as a representative of Slovenia on the 14th First Novel Festival in Budapest. His novel won the European Union Prize for Literature in 2016. Frelih's collection of short stories, "Ideoluzije", was published in 2015.

"Ideoluzije" is a collection of short stories by the renowned author of the younger generation. In his rich language, Frelih presents various socially engaged stories from prehistoric times to the time of tomorrow. Heroes of these stories travel through history, where human and state boundaries change, expressing fluid national and spiritual identities. In the world of these stories there is no whole truth, only the truth that is contextualized by different social, historical, and political circumstances. The center of attention occupy these emotional and social identity of the protagonist, who is often threatened by external factors. In this world, one has to fight in order to find oneself in new historical situations.

Vénus Khoury-Ghata is a French-Lebanese poet. She is one of the most distinguished and eminent living French female poets whose works have been translated in Serbia only in periodicals. The topic that the author often deals with is death, probably because she experienced two big dramas in her life: the civil war and the death of her husband in 1981. Transition from one cultural construct to another, a Western European one, largely influenced her writing, so she frequently speaks about alienation and suffering of a lyrical subject who migrated to a new social environment and had to adapt to it. Her opus is rich, with 15 books of poems and 15 novels. She won numerous prizes, such as 1980 Prize Apollinaire for "Les ombres et leurs cris", 1987 Prize Mallarmé for "Un Faux pas du soleil", 1992 Grand Prix de la Société des gens de lettres for "Fables pour un people d’argile", Prize Jules Supervielle for "Anthologie personnelle", Prize Baie des anges for "Le moine, l'ottoman et la femme du grand argentier", as well as Goncour prize for her entire opus, with which she entered the circle of most appreciated and famous French authors of 20th and 21st century.

After she published her novel, "Seven Stones", Vénus Khoury-Ghata returned to poetry. "Les obscurcis" is a collection of poems dedicated to Claude Esteban as a response to his poem. Her powerful poetic voice speaks about the issues of death, spatial and temporal dislocation, treating the most painful human topics with one philosophical and poetic key. The book "Les obscurcis" is an opus magnum of the author's entire creation. Khoury-Ghata turns to Lebanon, the country that gave her birth before she became a famous French writer. This collection of poems sums the migrant and lawful civil position of the poetess as well as her emotional relationship towards her inherited and adopted culture.

Paavo Matsin (1970) is an Estonian author who began his literary career in the group 14NÜ, which examined the possibilities of literary form. As an independent artist, Matsin has frequently explored the form and used experiment in his work. His first novel, "Doctor Schwarz. The Twelve Keys to Alchemy", is a strange mixture in an experimental style of writing combined with traditional romanesque narration. In his third novel, "Gogoli disco", Matsin achieved a perfect balance between experimenting and experienced handling of action. One of the more important traits of his writing is the presence of naturalistic literary elements; his characters are in an atmosphere where they act unpredictably. Matsin won numerous literary awards such as: Criticism Prize of the cultural weekly Sirp in 2011, Siugjas Sulepea/The Serpent Pen Prize in 2012, as well as nominations for the State Cultural Award in 2012 and the Prose Book of the Year in 2014.

Matsin's most prominent book, "Gogoli disko", is brimming with authentic protagonists, bizarre fairytale atmosphere in a somewhat grotesque gargantuan world. The story is set in near future in imperialistic Russia, which abolished Estonia's independence. Although this socio-political situation is potent and powerful, Matsin does not concentrate on the ruin of his nation, but on resurrected Gogol, who goes to visit the town Viljandi, where the system of values will evolve. Already stormy lives of the local villagers will completely change. Matsin's book is at the same anti-utopia and parody of anti-utopia. Between the magical realism and science-fiction, "Gogoli disko" opposes clear genre distinctions. Mixing humor and absurd, Matsin has created an authentic literary world concerning the man of the present. This novel's hero is lost in the past, present, and future; a migrant precisely because his country no longer exists. By playing with nationalism and crossing the boundaries, the author created a kind of apatride.

„A Place of Grater Safety”, monumental fictive account of the French Revolution, takes us far back into the past, to the time of Dumas’ and Dickens’ fictional worlds. Three main characters, Camille Desmoulins, Maximilien Robespierre and Georges-Jacques Danton are in the early stages of organizing a revolution. Mantel shines a light on the most personal parts of their life: childhood, love, relationships with others, knowing that it will help in to discover who these men were as adults. „A Place of Grater Safety” is historical fiction at its best, consistent of vivid specter of historical figures and (where possible) their own words, from their speeches or writings. This almost 800 pages long work reveals the intimate side of the French revolution.
So far, only 3 novels of this significant author have been translated into Serbian, and having in mind Mantel’s importance as writer in contemporary European and world literature, we believe that publication of this monumental novel will stimulate more translations of her work.

„Frumoasele străine” (The Beautiful Foreign Women) consists of stories Cărtărescu wrote for the magazine Seven Nights. The collection wager on humor and a highly personal kind of satire that is pushed to the limits of the grotesque. In this triptych, Mircea Cãrtãrescu paints deliriously absurd vignettes from literary life (of both the native Romanian and the cosmopolitan European variety). He dissects the literary world with the instruments of a writer-moralist who neither forgets nor forgives, least of all when it comes to his own mistakes. The stories („Anthrax”, „The Beautiful Foreign Women, or, How I was a Third-rate Author”, and „Bacovian”) are not just road movies narrated with sincerity and simplicity, but sequences from a human comedy.
Collection received Premio Euskadi de Plata to the Best Book of 2014. in Spain.

„Palveränd” (The Pilgrimage) , an adventure novel by Tiit Aleksejev, is the first book from the trilogy „Lugu esimesest ristisõjast”. The story is based on the chronicles of the First Crusade in the 11th century and begins with the declaration of the Pilgrimage by Pope Urbanus II. Dieter the servant, who will later become a soldier, a fictional character who reminds us of Voltaire’s Candide, will find himself in the middle of major historical events, bearing witness to an era. Dieter is a character who does not belong anywhere, but who is present everywhere. Interesting meditative visions, inner monologues and the question of what ideals made people go and suffer is like a psychological review of the inner ideals of the crusaders. The novel is about the importance of human relations as well, of loyalty, love, friendship. In order to write „Palveränd”, Aleksejev researched material for ten years and visited the main battle scenes in the Holy Land, so the novel, written with accuracy of the reconstruction of the medieval world, tells us the story of the inner values of the time, but at the same time, whether the medieval ones or those of the present day, the conflicts between the East and the West, in very original and beautiful language.

Szaniszló’s success with „Beenged” earned her the title of the most talented young writer in the country by opinion of literary critics. Connecting with the readers in a very intimate way, „Beenged” is one of the most originals books published in Hungary recently. It’s consistent of very short stories, some of them almost poetic-alike („Nigella”, „Unásig én”, „Óvatos lányság asszonykorban”) written in a simple and clear style. This unique collection depicts a woman in her thirties, everyday challenges, life in an office, and loneliness in relationships. These stories invite us to take a peek into the everyday life of their characters, and the author senses and enhances the emotions and problems we might otherwise not pay enough attention to. With her, „Beenged” communicates with readers, but not at the expense of losing the high literary quality of her writing. Szaniszló is constantly reminding us of the small things in life that can, in her hands, overwhelm us and give perspective to our world. Because of her interest in everyday life and humor, her writing is sometimes marked by the critics as An Eastern European female Jonathan Franzen.

Historically placing his novel Gaiļu kalna ēnā in 1905, Osvald Zebris finds the Russian Tsar in the atmosphere of impending revolution. Zebris is creating a world full of tension and people who are living on the edge of existence. The very nature of the war is that it divides people and they have to choose, maybe unwillingly, which side to fight on, in a cause that is not always clear to them. The character of Rūdolfs Reiznieks is full of contemplation of the past and the future, constantly in search of self-forgiveness and inner peace. Situations like the child kidnapping will shatter the lives of two families, as they struggle to understand who is guilty in a revolution where all sides are victims.
Zebris tells a story about the landmark historical moment for Latvian people, the moment of attaining their own country, all the while never forgetting the everyday man. This magnificent book gives historical insight into the situation in Riga, but maybe more important – the state of mind of its inhabitants, marking one of the biggest moments in their history.

Collection „Rzeczywiste i nierzeczywiste staje się jednym ciałem. 111 wierszy” came as a response to significant awards that author received. Poems are organized chronologically, by themes, in order to follow details from autobiography of Dycki. Initial poems are telling about childhood under Soviet Union. It is a strange, cold world full of incomprehensible words and toponyms. The poet suppresses nothingness, the whole labyrinth of repeated words (wind, rain, dirt, disease, bones) and phrases, but they aren’t the keys to the doorways leading into or out, but the points of convergence of different paths of this strange poetry building.
Dycki’s poetry investigates and redefines the links between death and the erotic, reality and unreal. He has an unusual ability to present drastic problems and situations in a masterful, awe-inspiring way.