READINGS: ŠUŠUR! FESTIVAL OF WORDS 2017
ŠUŠUR! FESTIVAL OF WORDS 2017
6. – 7. August 2017, 21h
Square in front of the St Mark’s Cathedral
Korčula, Croatia
This years’ 6th edition of the ŠUŠUR! Festival of Words presented some of the most prominent authors coming from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia to the local and international audiences during the two festival evenings. Titled “Among Us”, this years’ Festival was dedicated to female authors and their position in the contemporary literary canon as well as the position of female characters in the contemporary narratives.
The public program took place on the central town square when the audiences enjoyed presentations and readings of the following authors:
Tanja Šljivar (RS), a young and award-winning playwright that read from her newest play discussing the position of young women in the context of Balkans today; Sven Popović (CRO), being the youngest author of the Festival, debated on the question of describing women characters in works of the budding regional literary generation; and finally, Olja Savičević Ivančević (CRO), a much-awarded poet and author, personally related to the island Korčula, discussed her most recent novel and the position of females as main characters in her body of work and the world literature today. All the readings and discussions were moderated by Mima Simić, writer, filmologist and activist from Zadar, and Dinko Kreho, a literary critic from Zagreb.
The second evening took place in front of the largest audience ŠUŠUR! Festival has ever had, taking over the central town square in front of the St. Marko Cathedral. The gathered crowd was first entertained by the writer, film director and artist from Belgrade, Boris Miljković (RS), who explained the motives and process of writing one of his novels from a female perspective, as well as narrated stories specifically connected to Korčula. He was joined on the stage by the author and activist Lamija Begagić (BIH) who read parts of her educational handbook devoted to educating adolescents on the questions of sex, gender and feminism. The last guest of this evening was a well-known writer and columnist Vedrana Rudan (HR), who performed a literary “stand-up” show, including audiences to her satirical performance on what challenges women face today, in literature as well as in everyday life.
At the end of the second evening, the gathered public continued to discuss with authors and other guests of the Festival in the city’s Summer Cinema, where ŠUŠUR! party took place. The music selection was made by DJ Evox from Belgrade.
Like every previous year, part of the program of the Festival ŠUŠUR! was also dedicated to children – in cooperation with the internet portal Djeca.hr, a children’s workshop on female heroines from fiction and comic books was organized.
In total, the Festival succeeded to gather some 300 people during its two days of the intensive evening program, and has further increased the number of international guests from the Region coming to meet and hear some of the most popular authors in an informal, but yet creatively stimulating, atmosphere of the Festival itself.
As one of the special acknowledgements to our long-term efforts to promote contemporary literature from the countries of former Yugoslavia and put in the focus some of the most important socio-political and cultural issues of today among ex-Yugoslav peoples was a nomination of ŠUŠUR! Festival of Words for the first En FACE ::: ANFAS award. The Initiative Committee of Citizens and Citizens of Dalmatia establishes the EN FACE ::: ANFAS Award in order to promote and promote the work of those individuals who have indebted society and inspired resistance to socially retrograde phenomena and concepts and contribute to the strengthening of the Dalmatian core of resistance to revisionism.
The project was supported by the Ministry of the Republic of Croatia, Jan Michalski Foundation and Touristic Board of the City of Korčula.
