The programme’s aim is to connect Slovenian and foreign translators, publishers and literary promoters in order to stimulate even more lively exchange between European languages and Slovenian literature and thus enable the way for the latter to access into the major and smaller literary markets, where it is, despite its high quality, less present. Festival Vilenica, with its distinguished place among European festivals, helps establishing links between foreign publishers, literary agents, Slovenian authors and publishers.
In the spirit of this year’s Austrian and German focus, we decided to give priority to inviting translators, publishers and organizers of literary events from Austria and Germany.
Literary Mediators at Vilenica 2023:
Augusta Laar
Augusta & Kalle Laar: Photo © Jens Mauritz
Augusta Laar lives in Munich and Vienna. She is an artist, a poet, a musician, and an author of international exhibitions and projects. She is part of the Electro-acoustic poetry duo Kunst oder Unfall / Art or Accident, together with Kalle Aldis Laar. She is a director
of Schamrock Festival of Women Poets, the only international such festival, which takes place in Munich and in Vienna. She is also a director of the Munich film festival Female Presence. In 2021 she was awarded the Anita Augspurg Price for the Schamrock Festival of Women Poets, and in 2022 the Bavarian Culture Prize.
www.poeticarts.de, www.schamrock.org
Kalle Aldis Laar
Kalle Aldis Laar is a sound artist, composer, author of radio plays and essays, lecturer, DJ, music producer and founder of the Temporary Sound Museum, a comprehensive archive of vinyl documents on contemporary history. He has participated in numerous exhibitions, performances and interdisciplinary projects and has had lectureships in sound and power (UdK Berlin), perception and sound (sound & digital interface, Nanjang University Singapore), architecture and sound (FH Munich). He devotes his lectures to the connections between sound and power, sound and perception, sound and architecture, noise and art, as well as to the media and history of vinyl.
www.soundmuseum.com, www.callme.vg, www.kunstoderunfall.de
Petra Nagenkögel
Petra Nagenkögel: Photo © Eva Mrazek
Petra Nagenkögel lives in Vienna. She studied German Literature, History and Philosophy. She is a prose and essay author and a literary critic. Since 1996 she has been a programme director of the literary association “prolit” at the Literaturhaus Salzburg. In this role she focuses on the mediation of literature from Central, Eastern and South-Eastern European authors.
Andreas Unterweger
Andreas Unterweger: Photo © Niki Lackner
Andreas Unterweger is an Austrian writer, translator and editor of the legendary Austrian literary magazine manuskripte, based in Graz. He is the author of six books, all of which have been published by Literaturverlag Droschl, most recently the novel So Long, Annemarie (2022). His prose and poetry has been translated into several languages, including the novel Le livre jaune (Lanskine, Paris 2019) and the poetry collection Nijedna pesma (NoRules, Beograd 2021). In 2009 he was awarded the prize of the Akademie Graz, and in 2016 the manuskripte prize of the State of Styria.