Juana Adcock Bruno Vieira Amaral Clare Azzopardi Rumena Bužarovska Erika Fatland Albert Forns Anja Golob from Europe Árpád Kollár Ciwanmerd Kulek Zoran Pilić discover emerging literary talent selected by European festivals and venues new voices from Europe 4 n our era of information overload, recommendations Juana Adcock 4 are more important than ever. This is why we have I decided to make an annual selection of emerging European literary talent part of our landmark project Who are the Literary Europe Live. Chosen from a long list of thirty Bruno Vieira Amaral 6 by a group of literary festivals and venues, the selection aims to highlight the richness and diversity of European writing in all genres and languages, including minority ones. Clare Azzopardi 8 The selected authors are being given an opportunity most interesting they might not otherwise have with international awards Rumena Bužarovska 10 that focus on a single genre or are judged by a single-language jury. And what makes the selection particularly interesting is the authors’ varied engagement in the world of literature: they are novelists, short story writers, poets, but also literary Erika Fatland 12 translators, critics, editors, curators and organisers of projects. Their work will be promoted and, we hope, noticed, but they will also be brought together in numerous events - festivals, Albert Forns 14 writers working workshops, residencies - to discuss, translate, write and find inspiration for new work. In other words, with the New Voices from Europe selection Anja Golob 16 we are doing what Literature Across Frontiers has done for the past fifteen years: making literature travel, sometimes in Europe from the most unexpected places and in unexpected ways. Árpád Kollár 18 Ciwanmerd Kulek 20 Alexandra Büchler today? Director of Literature Across Frontiers Zoran Pilić 22 new voices from Europe 6 This body of a woman I inhabit This body of a woman I inhabit, desde where I’ve lifted my arm to touch the hair on the head of Moses, suddenly moved Juana Adcock is a poet to inside out tears from an entire childhood of lips stiffened to sustain the world protect and translator writing the softness of our angles our wisdom of curtains, desde where I’ve half-lowered eyelashes to seduce three, four desde where I’ve traced the sinuous “S” of desire in English and Spanish. which Cratylus called “serpent” and Adam called “perception of flux,” desde where I’ve grown tired of nursing Born in Mexico in 1982, like Teresa or Diana like the fear they did not feel when touching lepers she has lived in Scotland with their immaculate hands, the lips with which they kissed since 2009. Her first their blessed sores desde where I’ve washed out workshop grease soaked fibres in a universal river of saliva desde where I’ve bled drops book Manca explores miscarried fertilised wheat ivy desde where I’ve been a plot all bounty where goats graze the anatomy of Mexico’s violence and was I throw my mobile phone named by Reforma’s into the toilet Adcock distinguished critic flush wait a while „ call myself Sergio González leave myself voicemail “Juana represents so much of what is great may it reach a disoriented crocodile about modern Scotland; new voices from Rodríguez as one some nuclear seaweed diverse backgrounds making language their of the best poetry Benediction an unavoidable concrete wall: own, unafraid to experiment and innovate. may your head be blessed Her practice is firmly balanced between books of 2014. She is by an X flown by four birds translation and creative writing, and her may your feet be blessed poems and workshops often explore the currently apprenticed by the worms that will eat you relationship between the two.” may your hands be blessed – From the nomination to Liz Lochhead as part by the azaleas you didn’t plant by Scottish Poetry Library may your navel be blessed of the Clydebuilt poetry by the cells of your breath may your mouth bless Juana apprenticeship scheme. it all, bless. „ new voices from Europe 8 Bruno Vieira Amaral Extract from The Former Things felt numb when I left to boil, clotheslines screech- “You don’t remember me?” I my mum’s house. We’d ing through rusted pulleys, That’s when it hit me. had cottage cheese, cod with the flutter of birds startled It couldn’t be. Fernando. straw potatoes. I had seconds, in their cages, a nervous dog He was standing right there. and we drank wine – rough, pawing a wooden door, He looked the same as ever. cheap wine. I stood on the a yelp, the faded laughter He hadn’t changed a bit since landing, lights out, smoking of the miserable, the steady we were kids. We shared Born in Portugal in 1978, „ a cigarette and looking at the hum of a dozen refrigerators, a smile, it was only fair. windows of the buildings a mother’s scream, and off We walked together through Bruno Vieira Amaral “...some of the most beautiful pages across the street. I enjoy in the distance, in the back the maze of buildings. in recent Portuguese literature, smoking in the dark, of the building, the crash We found that we had very is a writer, translator, proving the rare intensity of this a clandestine pleasure. of bottles exploding into little to say to one another, triumphant debut.” That’s where my mind was crystal shards in the bottom after all. literary critic and editor. – José Mário Silva, there and then. I walked of a bin. But that had been “How long has it been? LER on As Primeiras Coisas down the stairs. I was sure years and years ago. The Ten years?”, I asked him His debut novel As Primeiras the stairwell used to feel bedlam had died down, like “Longer than that. “Bruno Vieira Amaral’s debut novel more alive, more people a storm cleared. The building It happened on December Coisas (The Former Things), [...] introduces a collective character, would go up and down had become a diseased body, 26th, 1999”, he replied. the Amélia neighbourhood, that may with weary sighs, and even fragile in its naked concrete Then he pointed at the published in 2013 by Quetzal well become an enduring feature in outside those stirrings, the skin, silent as a body not at phone booth in front of the Editores, picked up four Portuguese literary imagery.” muted animal breathing rest, but settling down to die. local council headquarters. – Isabel Lucas, from within people’s homes When I walked outside, “That’s where it happened. major literary prizes – Time Público on As Primeiras Coisas would have been heard; I heard a voice: Right there. Remember?” voices from television sets, “Hey!” My memory failed me. Out Lisboa’s 2013 Book “A surprising novel of rare and toys dragged across loose The voice grew sharper. Had it really happened there? poignant beauty, [...] one of those floorboards, doors creak- “Hey, Bruno!” “There. December 26th, of the Year award, the 2013 writers who know that good, true ing open and banging shut, I searched the darkness, 1999. That’s where they prose is also musical, it elevates and knives slicing into onions, the streetlamps were out. killed me.” Fernando Namora Literary redeems us.” the tiny thunk of blades I made out a profile. – J. Rentes de Carvalho, hitting stone kitchen Who could it be? Surely Prize, the 2013 PEN Narrative on As Primeiras Coisas counters, pots filled to the someone who knew me. brim settling on the stove, “How’s tricks?” Prize and the 2015 José matches scratching against He was standing right in Saramago Prize. the coarse edge of a box, front of me, but I didn’t „ water bubbling, brought recognize him. Translated by Luís Coimbra new voices from Europe 10 Born in Malta in 1977, Extract from “Sandra” in the collection Clare Azzopardi is The Names They Left Behind an award-winning he first key I ever left behind was the key to my the books fall to the floor. The diary was one of them. „ writer who writes for T diary. I left it on my desk at school, a green desk I picked up my Maths book and my exercise book. smeared with grease from sandwiches, where I usually I kicked the diary under the bed so that it was just “None of [Azzopardi’s] women children and adults. kept my pencil or biro and which also had the letters visible, hoping that she’d find it when she was alone. are your run-of-the-mill ‘pdm’ scratched onto its surface. I left it in full view, As soon as we were done, I packed up all my things characters. They are strong, Her work includes on purpose, so Paula Dawn Mangion would find it. and left. I’d left my diary with one corner protruding strange, obsessive, stubborn, I was in grade six at the time. This diary was where just a little. yes, but never ordinary.” poetry, plays, short I wrote my most intimate secrets: about my love affairs The next day, during the short break, when I was – Ramona Depares, Malta Today with Mauro, Ezekiel, Jamie, Keith, depending on who sure Paula Dawn wasn’t looking, I left the key in plain stories for adults, I’d quarreled or made up with. It had a padlock sight. And things turned out exactly as I thought they “Clare Azzopardi [is] I suspect, the attached, which could be opened or locked with would. While I was playing, Paula came to leave me most perceptive and stylistically picture books for this small red key.