World Literatures - Fabula Festival
Background
The Fabula Festival of Stories has been organised since 2004 by Študentska založba Publishing House in collaboration with Dnevnik Publishing House, and initially also by Postojnska jama turizem PLC.
The Fabula Festival takes place in several cities round Slovenia. The 3rd Fabula Festival of 2006, for example, took place in Ljubljana, Maribor, Postojna, Izola and Koper. In three weeks the festival hosted 10 world-famous writers – Milorad Pavić from Serbia, Miljenko Jergović, Krešimir Mišanović, Krešimir Bagić, and Robert Perišić from Croatia, Claudio Magris and Diego Marani from Italy, Georgi Gospodinov from Bulgaria, Kader Abdolah from the Netherlands, and Toby Litt from the United Kingdom – who presented their work at more than 20 literary events. A public discussion entitled "Dramatisation of Novels" took place at the Slovene National Theatre Drama Ljubljana, followed by the play Severni sij [Northern Lights] by Drago Jančar, performed by the Slovene National Theatre Maribor and directed by Mile Korun. Also accompanying the festival were a panel discussion about Slovene and Croatian fiction entitled Jeziki mesta [Urban Languages], and a conference on film stories. In 2007 the theme of the festival was "Death" and the festival featured some panel discussions involving artists, doctors, sociologists, and anthropologists.
Fabula 2010 – Literatures of the World Festival
The 2010 edition of the Fabula was the core event of the World Book Capital Ljubljana 2010. The festival hosted Herta Müller, David Grossman, Jonathan Franzen, Michal Viewegh, Daniel Kehlmann, and Richard Flanagan and presented the new translation of their works into Slovenian language. Screenings of the films based on the works by Fabula guests took place in Kinodvor Cinema.
The festival programme brought the book and literature into the streets and squares of the city: the promenade at Breg Street in the old city centre turned into the authors' cities: the words, music, film and smells depicted the cultures of New York, Jerusalem, Prague, Vienna, and Sydney. Music concerts featured the Chili dogs, Keel Klezmer Band, Godalika, Saxophone quartet 4saxess, AHIMSAUrban band, as well as a huge choir event: eighteen Slovene choirs accompanied by the Philharmonics orchestra sang works by Slovene poets. Secondary school students wrote down Prešeren's epic Krst pri Savici [Baptism at the Savica] on the Ljubljana promenade in free typographic forms, accompanied by the rap authors Boštjan Gorenc - Pižama and Klemen Klemen.
The events of the 2010 festival were organised in Ljubljana (Cankarjev dom, Kinodvor Cinema, the City Museum of Ljubljana, the Slovene Ethnographic Museum, and Beletrina Bookshop); in Maribor (Synagogue Cultural Centre); Ptuj (Ivan Potrč Library); Ribnica (Mikl House Library); Koper (Dom knjige Bookshop); and Trieste, Italy.