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Established in 1947, Cankarjeva založba is one of the largest and most prolific publishing houses in Slovenia, publishing around fifty titles a year. In September 2004 Cankarjeva založba became part of Mladinska knjiga Publishing House Group.

Cankarjeva založba’s publishing programme offers works from various fields, for example, drama, poetry, children and youth literature, travel writing, language handbooks, and monographic publications, all the while putting great focus on Slovene authors.

All work published under their name is available for purchase online at www.emka.si. JASMIN B. FRELIH Foto: Maj Pavček , where heco JASMIN B.FRELIH Rights sold to Poland, Spain, Croatia, Macedonia, UK,, Netherlands. › › › › › novel set inapost IN/HALF (Na/pol) isaglobalist and in2017 anessay collection In 2015, hepublishedashortstory collection Ideoluzije (Tiny Ideologies) the nature of the novel by a voice from the new generation of writers. web crafted by aningenious demiurge, In/Half isapowerful statement on reading experience likened to anextended surfingsessionona world wide With itssharp focus on the contradictions of modernity, and with the filled with the debrisof past histories for them to find asenseof belonging. ontology andsendsitscharacters hurtling through adisconnected world into the fate of the individual,of the family, andof society, with asolemn to push the limits of text’s possibilities, the novel charges itsinvestigations postmodernist playbook, while also taking the tricks seriously. Not content crew of intellectuals, artists andmadmen.In/Halfevery uses in the trick Poetrylitics, attended by amotley ready to read at the Brooklyn festival Zoja, ananarchist poet, isgetting nowadays becalledFortress Europe. the Slovenian partof what could is celebrating his50thbirthday in translations were publishedinall the Slovene literary magazines. writers of the young Slovene literary scene. His shortstories, essays and worked asitsprose editor for four years, publishing the best andbrightest family patriarch andex loss of the love of hislife. Kras, a is staging aplay andlamenting the theatre director in Tokyo in the future, narrative threads: Evan, anaddict The bookinterweaves three distinct EUROPEAN UNIONLITERATURE PRIZE FOR LITERATURE IN BUDAPEST, HUNGARY. SHOWCASED AS THE SLOVENE ENTRY FOR THE 2014 EUROPEAN FIRST NOVEL FESTIVAL ONE OF THE FIVEFINALISTSFOR THE KRESNIK AWARD FOR THE BEST SLOVENE NOVEL. FOR THE BEST ORIGINAL WORK OF 2013. ONE OF THE THREE FINALISTSFOR THE SOCIETY OF SLOVENE LITERARY CRITICS’ AWARD AWARD FOR THE BEST FIRST BOOK AT THE SLOVENE BOOKFAIR IN2013. - globalist future. - war - minister, (1986,Kranj, Slovenia) studied at the Bleda svoboda Bleda - founded the literary magazine Idiot and ( Pale freedom Pale ).

ZORAN KNEŽEVIĆ was born in (1958), but has since 1995 lived in Slovenia; his experiences as an immigrant are often the subject matter of his stories. He received the first award at the literary competition organised by Radio Slovenia for his story Soba (Room), whilst with the stories Polje soje (A Field of Soya) and Herpes zoster he twice won the Prose Competition at the Fabula Festival. He has published in the journal Literatura and on Radio Študent and Radio Slovenia; he has also taken part in the Literature Artistic Society’s short story workshops.

AMPHIBIANS DIE TWICE (Dvoživke umirajo dvakrat) This short story collection offers a fresh insight into the life of immigrants from the former Yugoslav republics, but not stopping only there. This is a book which courageously reveals the lives of strangers living next to us, whom we know only by sight and whose stories have a great deal to tell us and which can help us achieve mutual understanding and coexistence. Stories also talk about physical work, the body, pain and intense conflicts. They are stories of “amphibians”, the protagonists torn between two poles, who feel truly at home neither here nor there. On the one hand there is

ZORAN KNEŽEVIĆ ZORAN Serbia: the protagonists are connected to it by their warm memories of their childhood and youth, of their home village and the heroic rock and roll era, but also by memories of the patriarchal society, the deeply rooted prejudices and the violence that later erupted into war. Slovenia as their destination offers the protagonists a more relaxed view of the world, but at the same time it is also marked by tough working conditions and life on the Foto: Saša Kovačič Saša Foto: margins of poverty. Although there is room for humour in the stories… MILAN DEKLEVA MILAN DEKLEVAMILAN transcend biologicaldetermination andhuman fragility. is a first-person narrative about the struggle between the scientific wish to range. The novel with asurprisingending(and suffused with blackhumour) establishes the Society Against Hope andstarts going to the shooting he doesnot want to beacontributing factor to the cosmic dementia, he universe, and that inhislife there isnot oneiota of personal freedom. As is just anelement in the incomprehensible planof anaged anddemented director of the institute where he works. He isincreasingly convinced that he gets married,hisbrother-in-law becomes the deteriorate badly. His wife leaves him,hisdaughter involving hisolder soncausehismental state to the suicideof his youngest sonanda traffic accident intelligence, gets Pick’s disease.Demotion at work, A biosemantics expert, involved inperfecting artificial (Inštitut doktorja Faulstaffa ) incredible life story of the Slovene This shortnovel isinspired by the personality and A BODY OF LETTERS(Telo izčrk) works for children, anda translator. stages. He isalso the author of numerous poetic, narrative and theatre collections. He has written agreat deal for theatre, television andmusical collections of shortprose, three booksof essays and twenty-two poetry DOCTOR FAULSTAFF INSTITUTE to Austria. sold Rights increasing brutality of the last century. portrait of courageousthe daring, and talented heroine inconflict with the led by imagination andintuition, through which he tries to sketch amental from meeting Gamelin until Alma joined the Partisans). The narrator is Genoa, Arequipa) and the time after her return home(from 1932 to 1944, (, Christiania), the start of her journey around the world (1920, on the dramatic milestones in Alma’s life: from 1910until World War One The novel isdividedinto three parts, which focus Gamelin andher spiritualjourney into theosophy. her passion for herwriting, love for Thea Schreiber Slovenia. The three main themes of the novel are and writer Alma Karlin (1889–1950), borninCelje, (1946) is the author of seven novels, two - German traveller

VESNA LEMAIĆ (1981) received the Fabula, Golden Bird and Best Debut awards for her collection of short stories Popularne zgodbe (Popular Stories) and recently Novo mesto Best Short Story Award for her collection of short stories Dobrodošli (Welcome). One of the stories was included in the Best European Fiction collection. In 2010, she wrote the novel Odlagališče (Dumping Ground), followed in 2014 by the novel Kokoška in ptiči (The Hen and The Birds).

DUMPING GROUND (Odlagališče) Social outlaws who represent a threat to the system are condemned to forced labour. Among them is Grace, who does not consent to exploitation or democracy and even less to the capitalist world order. Trixie is a corporate researcher, so deeply engaged in the production chain that even her orgasms seem to belong to her employer. There is also Britt, a distributor of psycho-dogmatisms and a master of survival. They all meet in the Delta Zero entertainment zone and each of them tries to change her fate in her own way. This is a novel about a nearby world we have not yet noticed. It draws inspiration from real dumping grounds of electronic products and from a society in which the production and storage of waste is the domain of the social margins.

WELCOME (Dobrodošli) In this collection of short stories, the author juxtaposes the themes of and migrations. Small, passing

VESNA LEMAIĆ VESNA events reflect diverse identities, chosen or forced, and record places through which people pass or where they are trapped. In the stories, there is a coming together of the feelings of homeliness and foreignness, of being rooted and uprooted, of belonging and exclusion, which all arise from the dividing line – the difference between Us and Them. The network of cracks in society is getting denser through the memories and experiences of the narrator, who is trying to put the pieces together, aware that the surface is rotten because of the gaps, behind which lie depths of inequality that cannot be filled with meaning. The stories do not offer any resolutions, but place at the centre the superficial events with the understanding that these are not merely something ephemeral – that in their shadows hide de-layered meanings. URBAN VOVK URBAN VOVK reality involvement inpersonalarchaeology because of the introduction of narrative elements and the persistent narrated experiences of hisnearest anddearest, creating a field of inter likes to observe not only himself, heenrichedhisown experience with the ofhuman touch. the same order andnot (only) to him, which gives hisprose the special warmth a personally expressive note, describedby hisreaders Or rather: he was deposited there by hisessay writing which isenrichedby up andbegan to write reviews instead. He stumbled into prose by accident. his attempts at writing anovel never got beyond page one,hesimply gave and then in the last few minutes he tried to make up for lost time. Since is why during essay writing hereally liked watching hisclassmates working the fact that he was muchbetter at observing than making things up, which Even when writing essays inprimary school,Urban Vovk resigned himself to GARAGES work asacritic,andin2007 he was nominated for the Rožanc Award. StritarreceivedSlovenethe Award the from Writers’ forhis Association – everything told hasactually happened,but not necessarily in the (Garaže) (1971) is the author of three books.In 2002,he – as“simple shortprose”. Because he – probably mostly - EVALD FLISAR accompanied by the question: will we crash? Or will we land safely? aroundthe world. in 41languages andhisplays are constantly staged in various theatres writers andplaywrights. So far, 162 translations of hisbooks were published dialogues. But that isnot all stylistically, thematically, philosophically anddramatically very diverse find themselves next to eachother and who during the flight engage in and consists of conversations between passengers who happen to The story isset duringaninternational flight from Frankfurt to Singapore CLOUDSWORDS THE ABOVE EVALD FLISAR the twelve end and the unpronounced threat of anapproaching cataclysm. During of detective story uncertainty, tragedy, laughter and ridicule, with anopen that the humanspirit(and with ithumankind)hassunken into; amixture good, beit for uspersonally or for the world. An exploration of the mire relations inorder to ensure advantages that usually donot bringanything fragmentation of modern thinking and the tricks we useininterpersonal novel isanincreasingly dramatic study, largely in dialogue form, of the passengers are connected inanunusual way, perhapseven fatally so. The - hour flight through the ideologicalhistory of humankind, we are (1945) isoneof the most highly regarded Slovene – their exchanges soon tell us that some (Besede nadoblaki) METKA LAMPRET during their long journey? really forgiven the adulterer? Have the two girlsreached the promised land killed his wife? Has the unhappy, insomniac wife, who eavesdrops at night, moved from laughter to tears andbackagain. Has the dyingPolde really they are compelled to live. While reading their adventures, the reader is his or her own way, not sufficiently integrated into the community where in contemporary Slovene literature. Each of them isslightly maladjusted in from different socialenvironments, includingsome that feature only rarely The characters in these shortstories, from children to oldpeople,come WHAT TO MAKEOF A DAY LIKE THIS? (Kam bidala takle dan) a number of literary awards. This isher first book. Activities, etc.). The audience didnot booher off the stage. In fact, she won Prebranec prose evenings, events organised by the Public Fund for Cultural She hasread nearly allher stories at literary events (prose competitions, METKA LAMPRET (1949) began to write after her retirement. DAVORIN LENKO Foto: Iztok Hvala half into asupernova. This isametaphor for the fatal attraction between the exceptional density, which leadsit to collapse into ablackholeor explode title refers to aspecific type of star with a very smallcircumference butan WHITE DWARF STAR (Bela pritlikavka) isLenko’s second novel. The DAVORIN LENKO values andneeds. of love, which in Western culture isplaced at the very apex of the pyramid of but also for all those that are close to them. The novel questions the divinity everything inits way, thus presenting adanger not only for the two lovers, most authentic experiences: they are embroiled ina total love that absorbs and the other through the ritualisation of everyday life) seeks the most real, where eachof them in their own way (one through promiscuous sexuality takes place from the marshy Louisiana across Ljubljanaall the way to Berlin, first novel Telesav temi literary scene when he very justifiably received the Kresnik Award for his - German, half - Slovene Maria and the American Louis. Their love story (Bodies in the Dark, 2013). (1984) created quite astir on the Slovene BLAŽ KUTIN you is to try and gois to you tryflow.with the and Jolie or if agrand piano will fall on your head from the sky. All that isleft to opinion. A world in which you never know if you will beadopted by Angelina things happenandevents are strung together without anyone asking for our have bigdreams, but very littlecontrol over their fate. This isa world where American colonel, a young tourist or anestranged marriedcouple, often it adysfunctional family, anunsuccessful film director, anolder lady, an sometimes melancholy way our modern way of life. Kutin’s characters, be These twenty shortstories connect ina fresh, humorous, insightful and TIME BOMB(Tempirana bomba) odd shortstory or take aphotograph. He isusually obsessingabout film, film, film, buthealsolikes to write the BLAŽ KUTIN BLAŽ (1970) was born inLjubljanaandnow lives inBerlin. JOŽE PIRJEVEC A new light onfamiliar events TITO AND HISCOMRADES (Titoin tovariši ) His newest bookPartizani (The Partisans ) will beoutinMarch 2020. of hisresearch work to the history of Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav wars. of the Slovene Academy of Sciences and Arts hasdedicated agreat deal Since1980s the the Third Reich anditssatellites andbrought victory to the Yugoslav nations. all, the Yugoslav Partisan movement contributed significantly to the defeat of create abetter future, without their fanaticism, organization anddiscipline. Above movementbeliefand theirCommunistsutopian thatwithout the they would The book demonstrates that there would have beennonational liberation Ballists, etc.) andbetween the Partisans andalliesin the anti-Hitler coalition. the Partisans andother military formations Guards, (White Chetniks, Ustashe, the strained relations within the movement, as well as the relations between movement in the whole of the . The author describes and synthetic account of the emergence anddevelopment of the Partisan parts of the archives were only openedrecently. It is the first comprehensive Munich, Helsinki andMoscow which to date hasremained unknown since some by the author through research inarchives inLondon, Washington, Berlin, in 1941. The bookcontains aconsiderable amount of information obtained Yugoslavia, which occupiers andQuislings tried to erase from the mapof Europe emergence anddevelopment of the Partisan movement in the Kingdom of This long-awaited bookis the first to contain acomprehensive account of the THE PARTISANS (Partizani) also in to German, Russian andEnglish languages. Rights sold to Macedonia, Albania, France, Italy, Czech Republic. Translated such asStasi and the KGB. Rich pictorial material. as well as the archives of the Slovene and foreign intelligence services, materials in Washington, New York, Moscow, Berlin, Cairo andNew Delhi, former Yugoslav republics, while he alsoresearched the available archive kept inprivate andstate archives inLjubljanaandother capitalsof the second Yugoslavia, with Tito at the helm, the author draws upondocuments of his“comrades”. In revealing new dimensionsof the leadingcreators of the political rise, which was closely connected with the life andpoliticalactivities Jože Pirjevec’s bookpresents Tito’s life story and the background to his ofBrozJosip Tito. JOŽE PIRJEVEC – themost comprehensive presentation (1940, Trieste), amember

VINKO MÖDERNDORFER

Foto: Gaja VINKO MÖDERNDORFER important partof existence. because of this feels more strongly the questions aboutmeaningasan in this collection are women. A woman asabeing that gives life andperhaps that we are runningafter happiness. The protagonists of most of the stories often doesnot work out, why happinessisnot found, why we always feel revolve around the search for happiness and finding the reasons why life the traumatic experiences of individualsindifferent periodsof their life. All enriched with poetic digressions. The shorter stories are mostly notes about ones, are basedonrealistic psychology andnarration, which islinguistically around complex humanrelationships. Some stories, mainly the longer Novellas alternate with shorter, expressive stories, andallof them revolve INSTRUCTIONS FOR HAPPINESS(Navodila zasrečo) books indifferent genres andreceived anumber of Slovene literary awards. (1958) has written aseriesof IVANA DJILAS Foto: Peter Uhan Translated in to Serbian language. trouble with crisesis that they last. any worse. And years went by. The world moved on,leaving usbehind. The the time we believed that we hadreached the bottom, that itcould not get issues about the socialcrisis, which caneasily turn into a family crisis. All it. Selling ahousebecauseof aloanand anirregular income opensup wider which went viral on the internet assomany readers could see themselves in incentivefor novel the the mirror andsay: “You are anidiot.” But the plan was agood one. The It isnot easy to admit to yourself that you are anidiot. To oneday look in THE HOUSE(Hiša) IVANA DJILAS The House isher first novel. children. She writes aboutequalopportunitiesandaccepting differences. 1999, shehasbeenlivinginSlovenia, directing performances for adultsand she doesnot use the socialmediaanddoesnot have asmartphone.Since MA; sheis the mother of anadopted childanda with specialneeds; and carriesa few superfluouskilogrammes; shehasahouse,loanandan career woman, aprecarious worker; sheisnearly 40 years old,sheisloud forjournalist writing the weekly The House was aresounding articleby Ivana Djilas, (1976) isa theatre director and,recently, alsoa Mladina; sheisanimmigrant, anartist, a LUČKA KAJFEŽ BOGATAJ LUČKA KAJFEŽBOGATAJ quality and welfare of humankind. generation hasall the possibilities of preserving andeven increasing the unimportant. Through awareness, knowledge anddetermination, the young and show that the role of anindividual isnot necessarily marginal and future generations. It isnot too late to make our progress more sustainable and climate change. Otherwise, the latter will completely change the life of production, which is the mainculprit for the release of greenhouse gasses of life inecosystems. Moreover, we must also tackle the sinsof energy in nature. We must stop the processes that lead to the lossof the variety it, andin the end we carelessly throw itaway. Our sinsare alsoreflected by genetically modified food and the remnants of chemicalconcoctions in gives us food, butisgetting more andmore polluted, we are threatened air we breathe andensure sufficient quantities of drinking water. The soil This is why, before our children become adults, we need to cleanup the teenagers will live ina world marked by numerous environmental problems. If peoplecontinue to exhaust our planet’s natural resources, today’s THE PLANET THAT DOESN’T GROW (Planet, kineraste) Grow women who inspire Europe. Planet, kineraste (The Planet that Doesn’t she received the Nobel Peace Prize; in2012, she was ranked among the the Biotechnical Faculty inLjubljana.In 2007, asamember of the IPCC, and climatology, aprofessor andheadof the Centre of Biometeorology at ) isher third bookabout the environment aimedat young readers. isaresearcher inmeteorology UROŠ ZUPAN Foto: Maj Pavček live in. which, through refined and well considered means, talks about the world we rhyme isalways random andalmost unnoticeable. In short, this isabook come close to music,butat the same time commit violations, since their slowness. These are poems that simulate classical form and through this slowly floating melancholy or nostalgia or adesire to become abeliever in book liessomewhere inbetween. The atmosphere is typically Zupanian; a a work and we donot need to read the signature at the bottom. Zupan’s that iscalled originality, personalstyle, we immediately know who painted perhaps asimilar ruleisinvolved asinpainting where, becauseof something world, which isconstantly expecting new sensations and excitement. Or to the next? This isprobably adesire andaneedcoming from the outside What exactly are the expectations? To reinvent ourselves from onebook (S prsti premikamo topel zrak) MOVING WARMFINGERS AIR WITH UROŠ ZUPAN He lives with his family in the outskirtsof Ljubljana. (1963) isapoet, essayist andoccasional translator.

SUZANA TRATNIK Foto: Nada Žgank Rights sold to Austria. sold Rights a crazy adventure. uncouthness or lackof politicalcorrectness), which grabs usand takes uson uncompromising, direct aesthetics (sometimes involving uglinessor at least distinguishes this novel above allelseis the lively, flowing dialogue,and the about getting to know oneself, althoughit talks precisely about this. What grandmother. What happensisnot a typical love story or a typical story the hillat the endof the paved road, where oneof the inmates was her observer andcommentator Ariana, appeared around the madhouseon the remote village of Privežice. The place which, asnoted by the merciless was still very little,lives ina tense, conflictive relationship with her aunt, in follows. The maincharacter, Ariana, whose mother disappeared when Ariana introduction to the novel surprisesus,butstill doesnot prepare us for what someone, disposedof the body andconcealed itall.” This sentence in the “Oh, believe me, this woman, who isstill so young, didall this. She killed THE LOONY HOUSEON THE HILL (Norhaus nahribu ) mesto award for her bookNoben glas(No Voice) . she received the Prešeren Fund Award for literature; and this year the novo individual stories have been translated into over twenty languages. In 2007 short prose and novels, includingsome for young readers. Her works and SUZANA TRATNIK (1963) isanaward winning author of VERONIKA SIMONITI Foto: Laura Sozi and beencollected in two books.In 2015, her first novel, Kameno srce scene asanauthor of shortstories, which have won numerous competitions Rights sold to Albania, Croatia, China,Serbia. and things. standpoints at what we share. A beautifulnovel about unattractive times war are written aboutin the author’s gentle manner, looking from ever new movement cannot break the humanbonds.Even the hard times after the Ljubljana andmany other places, even inSerbia asrefugees, butall this These move between andPrimorska, alsostopping inGorenjska, novel presents the reader with the collective past andindividual fates. place at different times andgenerations of one family, Veronika Simoniti’s happened to the unbornchild? Through anumber of parallel stories taking year it was taken, 1943, was oneof troubling events andrapid change. What old mother’s hand, whilst her other hand liesonher pregnant stomach. The photographs she finds apicture of her grandmother, holdingher five-year- belonged to her late mother for aseriousbuyer, andinaheapof yellowed to the Primorje region inSlovenia inorder to clear the apartment that The narrator returns from Paris, where shehascreated ahome for herself, IVANA INFRONT OF THE SEA(Ivana pred morjem ) (A Stone Heart), among the fivewas finalists forKresnik the Award. VERONIKA SIMONITI (1967) appeared on the Slovene literary

A poem is a bird table that you have put up not so that you can collect as many birds as possible, but so that you can observe the life of birds and show it to others, your readers. It is not a cage in which you have caught an animal. The living spirit is invisible. When it seems you have caught it, you realise that you have something dead in front of you.

Jure Jakob