Georgi Gospodinov

Georgi Gospodinov (1968) is a Bulgarian poet, writer and playwright. His debut novel, “Natural Novel” (1999), is published in 23 languages including English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and most recently Icelandic. The New Yorker described it as an “anarchic, experimental debut”, according to The Guardian, it is “both earthy and intellectual,” Le Courrier (Geneve) calls it “a machine for stories.” His second novel, “The Physics of Sorrow” (2012), won several national awards for Best Fiction, among which - the National Award for Best Novel of the Year, 2013. It was finalist for 4 international prizes in Italy and Germany: Premio Strega Europeo, Premio Gregor von Rezzori, Brueke Berlin Preis and Haus der Kulturen der Welt Preis. The novel is widely reviewed in Europe and the in US by the New Yorker, Le Mond, FAZ, Die Welt, etc. According to the New Yorker, “Georgi’s real quest in “The Physics of Sorrow” is to find a way to live with sadness, to allow it to be a source of empathy and salutary hesitation…” According to NZZ “Georgi Gospodinov... rises above the lowlands of novelistic commercialism and convention, saving not only himself, but literature as well – and with it, the entire world.” The American edition of the novel is shortlisted for PEN Translation Prize 2016 and for the Best Translated Book Awards (BTBA). “The Physics of Sorrow” is published in 8 languages including German, English, French, Macedonian, Italian, and is forthcoming in Arabian. Gospodinov has written two plays, “D.J.” (2004) and “The Apocalypse Comes at 6 pm” (2010), both with national awards for best dramatic text of the year. He has also written an opera libretto for “Space Opera” (2015, Poznan) and a graphic novel. His latest books are “The Invisible Crises” (essays) and “And All Turned Moon” (short stories). The latter has been just published in German under the title “8 Minuten und 19 Sekunden” by Droschl Verlag. He was guest writer of Berliner Künst¬ler¬pro¬gram¬m des DAAD (2008), Wis¬sen¬schafts-kol¬leg zu Ber¬lin (2012) and Unseld guest professor in Creative Writing at Humboldt University (2015). He was awarded various writer-in-residence fellowships, including at LCB (Berlin), Museumsquartier (Wien), Zug (Landis&Gyr Fondation, Swtzerland), etc.

Andrej Blatnik

Andrej Blatnik (1963) holds a PhD in Communication Studies. After being employed as an editor for 25 years, now he works
as a professor of book studies at the University of Ljubljana.
He has published twelve books in Slovenian and over 30 in twelve other languages, including three in English and German and four in Macedonian, the last two being Izmeni me (Matica makedonska, Skopje 2015) and Pišuvanje kratki raskazi (Ikona, Skopje 2015). His short stories are included in numerous anthologies worldwide including Best European Fiction 2010 (Dalkey Archive Press 2010) and Short: An International Anthology of Five Centuries of Short Short Stories (Persea Books 2014). Andrej Blatnik has read fiction around the globe on literary festivals such as PEN World Voices in New York City, Toronto International Festival of Authors, Jaipur Literature Festival and Cosmopolis in Barcelona. He won several Slovenian and international literary awards.

Asli Perker

Asli Perker’s bestselling third novel, Soufflé, has been translated into 23 languages, and was published in English by Telegram Books. The Daily Mail called it, “A funny, moving, clever book which examines the real meaning of family as it explores the true power of food. Delicious in every sense.”
Perker was born in Izmir, Turkey and graduated from Dokuz Eylul University, with a degree in American Studies. After a brief stint as an advertising copy writer, Perker turned to journalism. After relocating to New York in 2001, she wrote a weekly column titled “From New York” both for a daily national newspaper and a monthly women's magazine. Her first novel, The Scent of the Others, was published in 2005, and her second, Executioner's Graveyard, followed in 2009, and was eventually translated into eight languages.
Perker’s latest novel, Help Me, was released in September 2015. Perker continues to write cover stories for Milliyet Book Review and articles for Milliyet Art Magazine. She resides in Istanbul.

Луан Старова

Mr. Luan Starova has been active in the literature since the age of twenty. He writes in Macedonian, Albanian and French language. In 1974 he did his masters and Ph.D. at the University in Zagreb, with further specialization at Sorbona at the Department of contemporary French literature. He then continued to work as a professor at the Faculty of Philology “Blazhe Koneski” in Skopje until his retirement.
Mr.Luan Starova attracted the attention of the local and international public in 1992 with his novel The Father’s Books (awarded best novel by the Writers Association of Macedonia) that also announced his Balkan Saga written in 13 books so far on more than 3,000 pages. The Time of the Goats novel was published in twenty more languages and awarded as the best novel on a competition organized by “Misla” in 1993. This novel was nominated for the following international awards: Best novel published in France in 1997, best European novel
for the “Jean Monnet” award, the “Angelius” award, the best novel in Central and Eastern Europe published in Polish language. A number of prominent European literature critics wrote for the Balkan Saga. It is considered to be one of the greatest European novels in the French literature. Mr. Starova was awarded a number of local and international literature recognitions and acknowledgments

Marko Vidojkovic

Marko Vidojkovic was born in 1975 in Belgrade. He holds a degree in Law. He has published the novels “The Dance of the Small-Time Demons”, “The Devil is a Friend of Mine”, “Butts on the Beach”, “The Claws”, “All Red Riding Hoods are the same”, “I Want Something Nice to Happen to Me Right Now”, “The Claws 2: The Pusher and Death” and “The Editor”, as
well as short story collection “May God help you” and “Diagnosed Stories”. For the novel “All Red Riding Hoods are the same” he won Vital’s Golder Sunflower Literary Award as the Best Book of the Year 2006. For the novel “The Claws” he received “Kocic’s Quill” and “Golden Bestseller” awards. His novels “The claws” and “All Red Riding Hoods Are the Same” are sold in more than 20.000 copies. He has published many stories in a lot of magazines including “Really”, “Rainbow”
and “Literary Magazine”, as well as in the collections of stories “Podgorica Nights” and “The Bukovski Project”. Vidojkovic’s work has been translated on German, English, Slovenian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Hungarian and Polish and he’s been published in Croatia as well. Along with Milenko Jergovic, he was protagonist of the documentary “A long Road Through Balkan History”. His first novel “The Dance of the Small-Time Demons” was adapted in to a theater play and was performed in Dadov Theater. This novel the author published it as a free PDF on Serbian and English language on his Facebook profile. Vidojkovic was an editor-in-chief of Maxim Magazine’s Serbian Edition and as an executive editor of Playboy Magazine’s Serbian Edition (2005-2011) has edited more than 60 numbers. He is an author of the satirical television series “390 Degrees” and a member of the Serbian Literary Assosiation since 2002.

Zvonko Karanović

Zvonko Karanović (1959) is a poet and prose writer born in
Niš, Serbia. He begin to writing under the influence of the
Beat literature, film, and pop culture. Until now, he published nine collections of poems and three novels.
His trilogy Dairy of Deserters is the first such project in
21st-century Serbian literature, and is comprised of the novels More Than Zero (2004), Four Walls and the City (2006), and Three Snapshots of Victory (2009). Taking place in the period between April 1998 and October 5, 2000, the trilogy chronicles the lives of three young urban men who, fighting for their beliefs, attempt to live freely in an unfree land. His trilogy is dedicated to Serbia’s “lost generation” – those who, in the 90’s, either left the country, perished in the new Balkan wars, or suffered social marginalization due to their cosmopolitan worldview. All three novels received great attention: More Than Zero went through three editions, while Four Walls and the City and Three Snapshots of Victory placed as finalists for the NIN Award, the most prestigious annual literary award for fiction in the country.
His poems were translated into dozen European languages, his work has been published in many anthologies. He received a several Serbian literary awards for poetry and international fellowships for writers in 2011 awarded by the Heinrich Boll Foundation (Cologne, Germany).