At the literary event, the author will talk about the creation of her debut novel, I Am the Cage — about writing inspired by her personal experience of growing up with a rare congenital physical condition and undergoing demanding, even cruel, medical treatments in childhood.

Together with the moderator and guest Adam Grant, the conversation will explore the themes that have shaped the author’s writing — from identity, vulnerability, and courage to trust, betrayal, and the search for meaning and freedom after physical and emotional trauma.

I Am the Cage (2025), the debut novel by Allison Sweet Grant, tells the story of 19-year-old Elisabeth, who faces medical trauma and the ways it has shaped her life. Through moving retrospection, beautiful poetry, and powerful character development, Elisabeth learns to confront her past and speak openly about her story and her scars.

Allison Sweet Grant is a writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times and The Atlantic. She holds dual master’s degrees from the University of Michigan.

Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist and professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of six internationally acclaimed books that have reached #1 of The New York Times Best Sellers and sold millions of copies; two of them have been translated into Slovenian (Think Again and Hidden Potential). Adam is also the host of the popular podcast ReThinking, in which he talks with distinguished guests about new perspectives on work, thinking, and human potential.

Author Allison Sweet Grant will join the event remotely (via video link), while Professor Adam Grant will attend in person.

The GreenTech program combines top scientific expertise with leading industrial partners to support Slovenian companies in the green transition on two levels: production processes and products. GreenTech is a research program designed to connect revolutionary solutions across the entire value chain of the development and manufacturing process – from research and development and technological innovations in production to energy-efficient devices based on EU-sourced materials. The program will first contribute to the green transition in Slovenia and subsequently expand its impact across the European Union and the planet as a whole.

Ob svoji veliki razstavi Napočil bo dan, ki jo do začetka septembra gosti Galerija Cankarjevega doma (poglavja I do III) ter Galerija Fotografija (poglavje IV) bo Ljubljano obiskal eden največjih okoljevarstvenih fotografov današnjega časa, Nick Brandt. 

Pogovor s fotografom bosta vodili kustosinji razstave Napočil bo dan Barbara Čeferin (ustanoviteljica Galerije Fotografije) in Katarina Hergouth, vodja razstavnega programa v Cankarjevem domu.

V Londonu rojeni fotograf Nick Brandt (1964) je študiral slikarstvo in film (na Saint Martin's School of Art). Med režiranjem epskega videospota Earth Song Michaela Jacksona v Tanzaniji leta 1995 se je zaljubil v živali in vzhodnoafriško pokrajino. Kmalu za tem je ustvaril svojo prvo fotografsko serijo On This Earth (2000–05), ki s poznejšima cikloma A Shadow Falls (2009) in Across the Ravaged Land (2013) sestavlja trilogijo. On This Earth je leta 2005 izšla v knjižni obliki z uvodi naravovarstvenice in primatologinje Jane Goodall, pisateljice Alice Sebold in fotografske kritičarke Vicki Goldberg.

Poznejši seriji Inherit the Dust (2016) in This Empty World (2019) sta bili prav tako posneti v vzhodni Afriki. 

Leta 2010 je Brandt v Keniji/Tanzaniji soustanovil neprofitno organizacijo Big Life Foundation, ki več kot tristo petdeset lokalnih čuvajev oz. naravovarstvenih nadzornikov zaposluje za varovanje in ohranjanje 1,6 milijona hektarjev zaščitenega ekosistema Amboseli/Kilimandžaro. 

Njegove fotografije so del številnih javnih in zasebnih zbirk. Pri svojem delu se osredotoča na posledice uničevanja okolja in podnebnega zloma tako za najbolj ranljive prebivalce planeta kot tudi za živalski in naravni svet.

V sodelovanju z Galerijo Fotografijo in WILLAS Contemporary

The Embassy of Spain and Cankarjev Dom organize another Literary Dialogue: Slovenia – Spain. 

The aim of this event is to unite authors, critics, editors, journalists, literary agents, students and general public in order to exchange ideas and experiences on different topics, generating debate on innovative proposals. Ultimately, we aspire to bring both countries even closer and to get to know each other better through our literatures and intellectuals.

In this dialogue, moderated by writer Carlos Pascual, the important literary and current topics will be discussed by representatives of contemporary literature, the Slovenian writer Liu Zakrajšek and the Spanish writer Marta Carnicero. 

Simultaneous interpretation in Slovene and Spanish will be provided.  
 

Prof. Dr. Marcus Stiglegger teaches film and cultural studies at the university of Freiburg and the Muenster School of Design. He received his doctorate with the dissertation Sadiconzista - Fascism and Sexuality in Film and habilitated in 2005 with the monograph Ritual and Seduction, in which he developed the seduction theory of film. He writes regularly for film magazines such as film-Dienst and epd Film and founded the magazine Ikonen. He is also a musician, writes screenplays and runs the podcast Projektionen. With the participation of: Anuška Delić, Dr. Gregor Moder, Bernhard Winkler, M.A.

Anuška Delić is an investigative and data journalist who leads a unique two-headed microregional nonprofit investigative journalism center, Oštro in Slovenia and Oštro in Croatia. She is also a Balkans regional editor with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
She established “The MEPs Project” which brought together journalists that represented all 28 EU member states. As a member of ground-breaking global investigations, such as the Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, FinCEN Files and The Laundromats she is a co-recipient of several awards, including the Pulitzer Prize on Explanatory Reporting.
 
Dr. Gregor Moder is philosopher and scholar. He studied philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana and received his doctorate in 2009 with a comparative thesis on Hegel and Spinoza. During his studies, he also worked as an actor and as the artistic director of theater projects. He spent research stays at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht and at the Universities of Cambridge and Princeton. Moder is a lecturer at his alma mater and specializes in political philosophy, metaphysics, ideological criticism and the philosophy of art.
 
Bernhard Winkler, M.A. is a DAAD lecturer in the German Program. His research focuses on German literature in Romanticism and Modernity. His current work focuses on erotic discourses in contemporary literature. He studied at the University of Regensburg, the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon and the University of Colorado at Boulder where he also taught as Teaching Assistant. He worked for two years as DAAD assistant at ELTE Budapest before starting his DAAD lectorate at University of Ljubljana.

In our project, we want to analyse and reveal the roots of new right-wing thinking in order to assess and deconstruct the manipulative power of these media that threaten democracy. Our guest Marcus Stiglegger is an expert in film studies and popular culture studies. Since propaganda and populism today are constructed and disseminated particularly through images, memes, films and other pop-cultural products, it is necessary to analyse the myths and methods used by the Identitarian movement, for example, to make their worldview attractive to young people. Awareness of the seductive structures of propaganda and populism should provide guests with politically relevant knowledge in order to question ideologies and to recognize and expose practical pop-cultural propaganda strategies in everyday life. Especially in light of recent political developments, disinformation strategies will be exposed that blur the difference between fact and fiction, thereby appealing to an audience susceptible to the totalitarian structure of such propaganda.

By exposing the pop-cultural mythical roots, the aim is to sensitize the audience to the manipulative tendencies of new-right ideologies that use social media in a global context to recruit followers.

In cooperation with the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Austrian Cultural Forum, and Goethe-Institut Ljubljana.

Featuring: Nadia Roncelli, Martina Kafol, Hanzi Filipič
Hosted by: Matej Krajnc

Language. Word. Book. On the International Mother Language Day, we are hosting three renowned personalities who have played a key role in shaping Slovenia’s transborder publishing landscape for many years.  

The event will be held in Slovenian, without translation.
 

Organised by the Slovene Writers’ Association
Readings by: Mojca Andrej, Sanja Rozman, Barbara Hanuš, Igor Karlovšek, Jasmin B. Frelih
Hosted by: Meta Kušar
Musical accompaniment: Matej Krajnc

In keeping with tradition, the new members of the Slovene Writers' Association have the floor on Prešeren Day. 

The event will be held in Slovenian, without translation.

Immigrant authors will address the importance of immigrant literature, the conditions for creativity in Slovenia and their participation in Slovenia's main literary events and festivals.  

Sara Afzali is an Iranian poet, journalist, photographer and visual artist based in Slovenia. She was born a year before the Islamic Revolution. A year and a half after the revolution, the eight-year war with Iraq began. She actually spent her entire childhood in the maelstrom of war. She says that her home is Ljubljana, where she can rest, read, write, think, own books, a notebook and pen, a camera, a bed, the clothes she likes and shoes she can walk in.

Mohamad Abdul Munem (1965) is a Syrian publisher and writer of Palestinian descent. He used to have a publishing house in Aleppo. He published works by authors from around the world, also ones that were not close to Assad’s regime, which is why his life was endangered on several occasions. In 2016 he immigrated to Europe. Adopting Slovenia as his new home, he soon started to participate in cultural activities in Ljubljana. He recently published a trilingual poetry collection Enaindvajset žensk iz Ljubljane (Twenty-one Women from Ljubljana, 2018) and is also writing new works. A book about his life story, Trije spomini – Med Hajfo, Alepom in Ljubljano (2019), was written by Andraž Rožman. He received the international PONT prize in 2024.

Hosted by: Selma Skenderović
 

Moderated by: Dijana Matković


Lana Bastašić
Among her generation of writers, Lana Bastašić is arguably the region’s most internationally prominent novelist. The structure of her debut novel, Uhvati zeca (Catch the Rabbit), draws inspiration from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. It won the EU Prize for Literature and widespread international acclaim. Her books examine the themes of contemporary nomadism and identity crises. In 2023, she won the DAAD Berlin residency fellowship. In addition to novels, she has also authored award-winning short stories and poetry.

In December 2023, Bastašić terminated her contract with the German publishing house S. Fischer, accusing it of silence in the face of the genocide in Gaza. She is critical of German censorship of pro-Palestinian views in the public sphere, as well as of all other imperialist and colonialist practices.


The conversation will be held in Bosnian, and interpretation will be provided.

Moderated by: Muanis Sinanović

Welsh author Rachel Trezise (1978) was born in Rhondda Valley, a former coalmining area of South Wales whose exclusive dependence on mining led to devastating social and economic consequences. Discovering literature in high school, Trezise learnt that writing could reflect the reality of a life like hers. Using her own life experience, she captured readers with works that deal with poverty, violence, abuse, class and gender. Her collection of stories, Fresh Apples, won the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2008.

Her novel Sixteen Shades of Crazy was published by Blue Door in 2010, and was translated into Slovenian by Suzana Tratnik (2023, Beletrina). The three main protagonists are thrown together as a result of their relationships with members of a local punk band, The Boobs. Each one of these women, for different reasons, is unsatisfied with her way of life, and dreams of something bigger, finding solace in alcohol and drugs. The arrival of an English stranger sparks in each of them a dramatic reaction to the dissatisfaction lying dormant in each of their psyches.