New book releases

in 2020

Litteræ Slovenicæ is happy to announce two new book releases in the year 2020. At the beginning of the year a newly translated poetry collection in German Gelb brennt der Forsythienstrauch from Slovene poet, Veronika Dintinjana, was published in the book series, translated by Ann Catrin Bolton.

Gelb brennt der Forsythienstrauch, Veronika Dintinjana’s first collection, is one of those rare debuts that not only shows promise but that seem as if it was written by an experienced author – both in terms of writing and life experience. Shortly after the publication of this book, Veronika Dintinjana was recognized as one of the best of the young generation of poets, and she remains a central name on the contemporary Slovenian poetry scene. This is by no means unusual, for not only is Dintinjana a poet with an exceptional ear for rhythms and the sounds of words, with a sense of the figurative dimensions of language (her poetry emerges subtly and smoothly from a language that is close to spoken language), she is also an erudite individual. She is a creator who possesses extensive knowledge of literature, classical music, and art history, and who knows five foreign languages. All of this is reflected in her poetry, which seamlessly weaves a dense network of intertextual, artistic references that are a veritable treat for art connoisseurs. Her poetry affects us on several different planes. Reading Veronika Dintinjana’s poetry is a profound, fulfilling but also inexhaustible activity.

Others about Veronika Dintinjana’s poetry debut

“I can safely say that in the last ten years I have read only two poetry debuts that combined a similar strength and innocence (pure joy in writing a poem, without other ambitions and calculations) to that of Veronica’s book, and these two have been outstanding debut works.”

Uroš Zupan, a Slovene poet  

Another new translation is a translation into English of the with the EU Prize for Literature (EUPL) in 2010 awarded novel in stories Blackberry Heaven from Slovene author Nataša Kramberger. The novel was translated by Kristina Helene Reardon and published during the corona times.

Kramberger often mixes the rural and the urban in her work, the realism of the contemporary with the mythologized past, while combining the genres of journalism, essays, and belles-lettres. She spends her summers in the village of Jurovski Dol, where she founded the eco-collective “Zelena centrala” (Green Central) with which she promotes the principles of ecology, art, and social inclusion. She spends her winters in Berlin, where she runs the Slovenian-German cultural association Periskop.

Others about Nataša Kramberger’s novel

“Blackberry Heaven is a novel in stories that come to life as raindrops, in medias res, passionately, wildly, sometimes peacefully, lazily, and at other times euphorically. The novel surprises us with a range of narrative styles and poetics, from situation comedy to countryside humour, from urban quarrels to post-war difficulties, along with wonderful love stories.”

https://www.euprizeliterature.eu

The new titles were published with the financial support of
Creative Europe Programme of the European Union and
JAK (Slovenian Book Agency), the English translation also of National Endowment for the Arts.