On the occasion of the official Opening of the 26th Vilenica International Literary Festival on 7 September, Secretary General Amb. Pfanzelter presented the CEI Fellowship for Writers in Residence to Ognjen Spahić from Montenegro.
The Fellowship jury including Patrizia Vascotto (Italy) as chair, Ludwig Hartinger (Austria), Namita Subiotto (Slovenia), Lucija Stupica (Slovenia) andJani Virk (Slovenia) has selected Ognjen Spahić, a “motivating voice of contemporary Montenegrin storytelling, who moulds historical materials in educated yet also folk-tinted tones with a purpose, which succeeded completely: he analyses the past in order to understand the present more broadly and correctly. His writing is modern and diverse. It spreads between journalistic and literary critical layers, and reaches from chronicles to literature. As an attentive reader and critic, Spahić collaborates with many cultural journals, and his novel – which paints a picture of post-communist Europe through the remnants of its own past – has achieved great recognition and was translated into numerous languages. His narrative project, shaped through unattached novellas, newly proposes the centrality of the individual, his intimate experiencing and personal perturbation, and his approach toward a history that deprives ideologies of a role. In a time, where ideologies disappear and are substituted by qualunquism and individualistic narcissism, the “I” could very well be perceived as perilous. Yet, the responsibility of the individual is revealed in honesty toward the other, in the demythologisation through metaphorical images, in inner hopes, and in the search for the new ethics.” Ognjen Spahić was born in 1977 in Podgorica, Montenegro. He is a novelist and short story writer. Spahić has published two collections of short stories and won the 2005 Meša Selimović Prize and the 2011 Ovid Festival Prize for the best work of fiction translated into Romanian for the novel Hansenova djeca (Hansen’s Children, 2004). This novel was also translated into Slovene by Dean Rajčić and published by Študentska založba in Ljubljana this year. His works have been translated into several languages. Since 2006, the CEI Fellowship for Writers in Residence has been presented by the CEI in collaboration with the Slovene Writers’ Association, as part of the Vilenica Festival. The Fellowship seeks to encourage cross-border cooperation and promotion in the field of literature for young writers from non-EU CEI Member States. The Fellowship, which is endowed with a cash award of 5,000 EUR, is intended to be used for a three-month residence in any CEI Member State of the candidate’s choice. During this period, the author is expected to work on the project indicated in the application form. On 6 September, a pre-opening event of the Vilenica Festival was held in Trieste at the CEI HQ, to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the CEI Writers-in-Residence Fellowship. Three of the former fellows attended the event, publicly demonstrating the results of this valuable initiative: Goce Smilevski from Macedonia, Dragan Radovančević from Serbia and Maja Hrgović from Croatia. On 8 September, the CEI Round Table “Read Me Live” took place in Lipica with the participation of the pannelists Alberto Manguel (Argentina/Canada), Pavel Brycz (Czech Republic), Ljiljana Jokić Kaspar (Serbia). The meeting was moderated by Gregor Podlogar (Slovenia).The programme of the 26th Vilenica International Literary Festival is available at: www.vilenica.si For more information: fabro@cei-es.org
Ognjen Spahić