HONORARY GUESTS OF THE VILENICA 2013

Foto:Matej Druznik/DELO

Boris Pahor, born in 1913 in Trieste, is one of the most prominent members of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts and among the most discernible Slovene authors abroad. In 1920 he witnessed the arson of the Slovene Cultural Centre at Narodni dom in Trieste. During the Second World War he joined the national liberation movement and spent the last year of war in the concentration camps Natzweiler-Struthof, Dachau and Bergen-Belsen, which eventually proved to make a crucial impression on his literary work. He was a candidate for the Nobel Prize for several times.

Boris Pahor, who has survived fascist persecution, Nazi concentration camps, and who advocated the need for a democratic Slovene state after the war, is also a fervent fighter for the rights of Slovenes living outside the borders of Slovenia.
In his works Boris Pahor has articulated the unified and intertwined essence of humanity: national and individual pride, along with enduring in love and humanism. A democratic-minded and cosmopolitan Trieste writer of artistic strength and persistence, Boris Pahor reveals to the Vilenica International Literary Festival an example of his mission as well as the purpose of his work.

The Vilenica Jury has granted the title of “Honorary Guest” of the 28th Vilenica International Literary Festival to Ludwig Hartinger.

Ludwig Hartinger

Ludwig Hartinger was born in 1952 in Saalfelden am Steinernen Meer in Austria. The poet, translator into Slovene and French, writer, editor, and publisher has been bringing the Slovene literature closer to the German speaking reader for more than two decades. The sedulous “word smuggler” publishes his essays and translations in German and his poetry in Slovene. He divides his time between Salzburg and Ljubljana, and also thoroughly enjoys hiking through the Karst region of Slovenia. From the first international Central European prize back in early September 1986 up to today, he has not been absent from a single Vilenica Festival. His cosmopolitan perspectives and especially his commitment to Central European culture have been, and continue to be, an invaluable aid to the Vilenica jury. Ludwig Hartinger, a loyal friend, has constantly contributed to the success of Vilenica.