“SKOPJE FELLOWSHIP" PROGRAM

Foreing publishers, festival directors and programme managers, literary agents and scouts – visiting PRO-ZA Balkan “Skopje Fellowship” programme is dedicated to foreign publishers, festival directors and programme managers, literary agents and scouts. The Festival is among the first in the region to establish a programme dedicated to such a profile of guests, and continues with the same intensity. The objective of the Fellowship Programme is to familiarize the stakeholders of the prominent festivals and the world of publishers with our literary scene, which, we hope, would result in new translations, visits of writers abroad, promotion of the literature, networking of writers and cultural workers in the area of publishing and literature with their European and worldwide colleagues...

AURORE TOUYA

Aurore Touya (Paris, 1983) is an editor and the coordinator of Foreign literature at the French publishing house Editions Gallimard. After studying French and comparative literature at
the École Normale Supérieure (Lyon, 2003-2006), she wrote her Masters thesis at the University of California (Berkeley, 2007)
and defended her PhD thesis in comparative literature at the Sorbonne University (“The polyphonic novel in the 20th century: William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, Albert Cohen, L.-R. des Forêts, Juan Rulfo, Mario Vargas Llosa and Roberto Bolaño”, published by Classiques Garnier, Paris, 2015). She was a reviewer and translator for the Editions Christian Bourgois and translated
movie scripts and novels from the English, German and Spanish. She worked as an editorial assistant for the imprint “Bibliothèque de la Pléiade” at Gallimard from 2011 to 2016, and then entered the department of Foreign literature within the same house. She has been since 2019 the editor in charge of the translations from the German, Dutch, languages from Eastern and Central Europe, and also coordinates since 2021 the program of the imprint “Du Monde entier” at Gallimard, an international imprint that turned 90 years old in 2021.

PELİN YILMAZ

Pelin Yılmaz worked with Epsilon Publishing Group since 2019. My main responsibilities in the publishing group are project management, corporate sales and marketing. Since 2020, I am in charge of the Rights Department exclusively. We work to make travel our books around the world. Our titles have been translated to many languages such as; English, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Slovenian, Korean, Chinese, Arabic, etc.... My goal is to maintain a sustainable relationship with international publishers and foreign rights managers.

KATJA KAC

Katja Kac (1992) obtained a degree in Cultural Studies from the Faculty of Social Sciences in Ljubljana. From 2012 to 2014, she worked at the music Festival Godibodi as coordinator for guests and artists. She also worked on the European promotion of the biggest Slovenian open-air festival, Festival Lent since 2011. In 2014 she held the post of the Vice President, working on grants, public relations and promotion. In 2013 she was cooperating with the Humanity Centre for the History and Culture of East-Central Europe. Since June 2015, she has been working for KUD Sodobnost International as project manager and foreign rights manager. Since May 2016, she has been involved in projects Our Little Library (DG EAC named the OLL project a “success story”), Books Connecting the Worlds, and Ready for Reading. She was project manager for EU cooperation project Our Little Library: Let’s meet children’s authors and illustrators.

VLADISLAV BAJAC

Vladislav Bajac is a novelist, story-teller, poet and publisher, born in 1954 in Belgrade. He studied Yugoslav and World Literature at the Faculty of Humanities in Belgrade. He has also worked as a journalist and translator. In 1993 he founded the publishing house Geopoetika.

His books of stories include Europe on the Back of a Bull (1988) and Dream Coasters: Geopoetical Fables (1992, 1995), the latter of which won the "Stevan Pešić Award" for the best book of prose for the year. He has written several outstanding novels: The Book of Bamboo (1989), The Black Box (1993; Borislav Pekić Foundation Award), The Druid from Sindidun (1998; 'Šesti april' Award for the best novel about Belgrade; Branko Ćopić Foundation Award given by the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences; the Bestseller of the Year Award), Escape from Biography (2001; 'Hit Libris' Award), and Europe Express (2003, international 'Golden ring' Award for the overall achievement in literature, Skoplje, Macedonia).
His novel Hamam Balkania was awarded international Balkanika prize for the best novel in the Balkans for 2007/2008, 'Isidora Sekulic' Award for the best book in 2008, as well as 'Hit Liber' Award for the same year.
His poetry and prose has been translated in a dozen foreign languages. His books have been published in France, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Russia, Italy, Slovenia, Greece…, and theater plays have been performed based on his texts. He is the founder and president of Geopoetika Publishing. He won the first “Prozart” award in 2013.