21st San(J)am Book Fair in Istria, Pula, 3-13 December 2015

For the second year in a row, the Art Press Caravan saw out the Pula Book Fair in Istria, held in the period from 3 to 13 December.

The 21st San(J)am Book Fair in Istria — the Pula festival of books and authors — over the 11 days of its duration offered a handful of events. The crew of the Art Press Caravan singled out, from the rich offering of the festival programme, book presentations, and especially interestingly conceived parts of the festival, such as “Breakfast with the Author” and “Author Reads Author.”

Especially attractive is the theme “Author Reads Author,” where one writer, in the role of host, poses a question to another writer on the subject of their book, then they swap roles, so the host becomes the writer and the writer the host. This kind of conversation between writers, of its own accord, sparked an interactive approach with the reading public, which filled the auditorium in great numbers. People freely joined the conversation and posed questions about the life messages and the natural and architectural beauties presented in those books.

In the assessment of the Art Press Caravan crew, the best impression of this part of the festival programme was left by the Serbian duo Dana Todorović and Đorđe Miketić. It should be emphasised that Dana Todorović, who is from an artistic family (the daughter of our late acting bard Bora Todorović), conveyed a powerful energy to the audience by reading excerpts from her fantastic work Park Logovskoj. Her literary work is interwoven with sincere emotions that washed over most of those present in a powerful wave. PARK LOGOVSKOJ is inspired by Russian writers and arose as a departure from spatial-temporal reality, so that we might gaze into the very essence of our being and the torrent of life events unacceptable to us, which unexpectedly shower us in the outer world. It gives us answers to the question: How to accept and overcome such events as painlessly as possible, so that we might freely continue the struggle of life, fortified by a new spiritual comprehension of life’s obstacles, which, viewed in this way, alchemically and instantly transform into life experience. Suddenly yesterday’s problems give way to a new turning point in life.

In the fair’s programmes, 250 publishers participated, among whom were 30 significant ones from Serbia, gathered around the ASSOCIATION OF PROFESSIONAL PUBLISHERS OF SERBIA (UPIS). The best-selling book this year was SARAJEVO, CITY MAP, by Miljenko Jergović. The programme concept was rich in content and varied, filled with current topics. We noticed that the Pula book festival is aimed at a wide circle of visitors, and that the atmosphere was exceptionally lively, almost palpable. In support of these words is the fact that a large number of authors from beyond the region were present, such as Erri De Luca (Italy), Jón Kalman Stefánsson (Iceland), Oleksandr Irvanets (Ukraine), Joachim Sartorius (Germany), Benjamin Flao (France), and among prominent writers from the region Pula was visited by Namik Kabil (Bosnia) and our Dragan Velikić from Serbia.

In the closing part of the Book Fair, this year’s regional programme “BELGRADE READS” presented itself over three, for us unforgettable, days. Belgrade presented to Pula the contemporary cultural scene of the metropolis. “BELGRADE READS” arose in cooperation with the publishing house “Geopoetika.” The people of Pula were, within our favourite programme, dazzled by: Slobodan Šijan and Goran Marković, our celebrated directors, and Slavoljub Stanković, Slavimir Stojanović, Božo Koprivica, the aforementioned Dana Todorović and Vesna Goldsworthy. The Fair had its most topical-ever theme, titled “Island-Ghetto-Asylum.” It is a theme that has only just opened, that should be unravelled and should by no means come to a halt until at least somewhat satisfactory solutions are reached, which would truly come to life in reality.

The organisers of the Pula festival invited our Art Press Caravan to be a guest of the Fair next year as well. For 2016 the theme “TRANSATLANTIC” was announced, within which Portuguese, Spanish and South American literature will present themselves, promising an encounter of Mediterranean breadth and hot southern blood. The Art Press Caravan is a witness that Pula values and gives space to Serbian film and book. This summer we were delighted by the fact that the best film of the Film Festival in Pula, by the assessment of the audience, was proclaimed to be the film by the SERBIAN DIRECTOR Darko Bajić, WE WILL BE THE CHAMPIONS OF THE WORLD, and this year our filmmakers and writers were given three days to present the modern Belgrade creative scene under the title “BELGRADE READS.”

With full hearts we left Pula because of the living fact that the Art Press Caravan takes part in the mission of cultural-artistic exchange and rapprochement in the field of creativity, where borders and prejudices are erased.