After two years in virtual form, the twelfth edition of the "Polip" international literature festival returns physically on Friday at the "Oda" theater. "The writer is present" is the theme of this year's edition and the opening follows with the promotion of the book "I verbri" by the Slovenian author, Mitja Çander, translated into Albanian by the writer and translator Nikollë Berishaj. The festival organized by the "Multimedia" center brings the authors Şebnem İşigüzel from Turkey, Eqrem Basha from Kosovo, Ivana Bodrozhiq from Croatia, Carsten Jensen from Denmark, Jovica Ivanovski from North Macedonia and Joel Vernet from France. They will be joined by Aidan Hehir from Great Britain, Edis Galushi from Prizren, Daniel Gustafsson from Sweden, Carsten Jensen from Denmark, Mirishahe Syla from Pristina, Nikola Nikolic from Montenegro, Aleksandar Pavlovic from Serbia and many others.
For three days, book lovers will have the opportunity to closely follow discussions that include several topics "Life vs. Literature / Who tells the stories and who shares them?" and "War in Ukraine - What can writers and translators do now?", are some of the topics of the panels, as well as "Historical narratives and collective memory as the origin of ethnic wars, or as a tool for healing and reconciliation of post-war societies? How do writers affect the result?". The first evening of the festival ends with a musical performance by the singer Edona Reshitaj with her band, while the second with literary readings by local and international writers.
The theme set for the twelfth edition of the festival aims to define the state of writers in recent situations such as global disasters: war, pandemic and refugee crisis.
"It has a little to do with the fact that in the last two years the writer has not been present and now he is, but this year's theme goes deeper than the writer's physical presence. It is intended to talk about the positions in which the writer finds himself at a time when the world is facing refugees, pandemics and war", said Aurela Kadriu from the "Multimedia" center.
According to the announcement of "Multimedia", this year's theme "is based on the inspiration from the performance of the artist Marina Abramović called 'The artist is present', through which she broke the boundaries of the distance between the artist and the audience of her art by staying for 736 hours sitting in a chair for three months and watching eye to eye 1.675 visitors of her performance.
"Polip" is a festival that aims to unite young writers from the region and Europe in Pristina. It was founded and managed by the "Multimedia" center and goes beyond the framework of a literary festival and a simple literary connection, as it includes a broader understanding of the concepts of building peace and trust in the region, especially those between Kosovo and Serbia.
