Ljubljana is a city of illustrators, of libraries, of translators, of festivals, of writers... - a City of Literature! Damjan Zorc from Ljubljana City of Literature office knows what more there is to discover in the capital of Slowenia and talked about international relationships, best practices and Bremens application in this interview with Annika Depping.
What makes Ljubljana a City of Literature and since when does it have the title?
Ljubljana was a World Book Capital in 2010 and getting the UNESCO City of Literature designation was a logical next step. Ljubljana was designated as UNESCO City of Literature in 2015.
Ljubljana is a city of festivals. We have one of the oldest jazz festivals in Europe, an international film festival, a storytelling festival, and an international literature festival that brings the biggest literature celebrities to Ljubljana.
More about the UNESCO City of Literature Ljubljana
Ljubljana school of psychoanalysis, also known as the Ljubljana Lacanian School is a popular name for a school of thought that developed around the Society for Theoretical Psychoanalysis based in Ljubljana, Slovenia. It gained international reputation for its original bringing together of psychoanalysis and philosophy, with many groundbreaking contributions to both fields, as well as to political thinking, thinking of art and analysis of popular culture. Among philosopher’s representative of the school are also Slavoj Žižek, Mladen Dolar and Alenka Zupančič.
Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia; the whole country has 2 million people. Even though it’s a small language market, we have many great translators that translate from the original languages. Each year, around 30 percent of published books in Slovenia are translated.
Ljubljana is also a city of the architect Jože Plečnik. One of his most notable works is The National and University Library, and his works were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Ljubljana is a city of illustrators. There’s a lot of illustrators working in Ljubljana, many of them work with renown foreign publishers. Each December, there is also a fair for illustrations in Ljubljana organized by the specialized centre for illustration. Around 4,000 titles are published in Slovenia every year, 900 of which are children’s books. Such numbers place Slovenia among the world’s leaders in the number of books published per capita! Books embellished with images by Slovenian illustrators have been published in countries and languages around the globe, including Argentina, the United States, Japan, France, Germany, Austria, China, and more.
Ljubljana is a city of writers, not only local but international as well, as Ljubljana is part of ICORN, International Cities of Refuge Network. Most of the publishers and booksellers also have a seat here.
In Ljubljana, we love to borrow books. One in four residents of Ljubljana is a library member. And we have so many libraries that no matter where you live in the city, there’s a library within a walking distance.
We have a system of giving books in Ljubljana, called Ljubljana Reads, giving free books to first and fourth graders in school. Since 2008, the city of Ljubljana has given books to more than 100,000 children.
What does it mean for Ljubljana to be part of UNESCO’s Creative Cities? What are the advantages, what are the obligations?
We have set three strategic objectives for the city of Ljubljana; to act as a strategic partner for the cultural institutions in the city, to promote quality content; to help and support and encourage organizations in the city to collaborate; to be active internationally by developing connections, strengthening ties with other Cities of Literature, exchanging authors; tapping into potentials of other cities, learning from their best practices. All of this is of great interest to our literary scene.
What were your first steps after receiving the title?
For the first year and a half, the city of Ljubljana (department for culture) managed the title. Since 2017, the office has been managed by the NGO Divja misel (also managing the Vodnik Homestead, a literature house). The first step was to figure out how to run the programme. Each City is running it a bit differently, so we organized a workshop with relevant stakeholders (university, city government, bookshops and publishers, national and city library etc.) to gather ideas and feedback on how to benefit from the designation.
Based on limited budget and given the fact that our literary scene is very lively (but not connected) we decided that we mainly wouldn’t be producers but an office for cooperation, support and connecting all that deal with books and reading. This then changed throughout the years, and we started producing too, for example book fairs which are still a community effort.
We also started collecting information on institutions, stakeholders, programmes, events, authors, main needs etc. We chose a bottom-up approach, community oriented (grassroots). We then created a website in Slovene and English and started using all the information that we collected - we started a calendar with all the literary events that happen in the city, we started writing portraits of notable literary people, and we also included the list of all the organizations and institutions, bookstores, libraries and other places that deal with literature with all the relevant information and a map.
How did it continue from there?
Once a season, we bring together relevant partners and those interested in literature for a working breakfast that is of internal nature, it is not open to wider public and media. The participants listen to six short presentations on relevant topics – four of those on projects (for example, Ljubljana as a guest of honour at Frankfurt Fair, the renovation of old sugar factory to make it a modern cultural literature centre), and the remaining two on relevant topics (book fairs, digital communication, book tax, etc.). Before and after the presentation there is a chance to connect and talk about important dilemmas and projects and ideas in a friendly manner. The idea is to connect relevant partners and to show them that the UNESCO title is something we can all benefit from – to connect, work together, showcase important cases, share information and knowledge.
We continue to do this when we want to gather new insights, feedback and ideas on how to help and support our literary community. From time to time, we come to a point where we are not sure what to do next, how to proceed, and gain valuable insight into what is needed in our city.
Which international relations emerged for Ljubljana after joining the Creative Cities Network? Which specific international projects could be initiated as a result?
Ljubljana (and me personally) is a deputy representative for the network of the literature cities (the main representative currently being John from Iowa City to be succeeded by Hannah from Nottingham from the beginning of next year). This means we’re providing support for the representative (coordinator) of the network, and also making sure that collaboration and communication between the cities is running smoothly.
One of the important projects that we started soon after we started managing our office is Ljubljana International Literary Residency – Writer in The Park, for authors from other UNESCO Cities of Literature. Each year, we provide residency for two authors chosen among more than 100 applicants, with the number of applications rising each year. We’re now looking to expand our residency programme, with Angoulême as our partner city we are going to start a comics residency in 2024.
The value of being in the creative cities network is manifold. As we’re a great network of many cities around the world, we share best practices that we can adopt and adapt in our own cities. Sometimes, most of the Cities of Literature join for a celebration of an important date – like the International Poetry Day which was started in Granada and then followed by many cities in a celebration of poetry. Whenever a City of Literature organizes an international project, they can rely on partner cities to suggest appropriate participants, fostering the mobility of authors within the network.
For the past four years, Ljubljana has also been in a project called Story Valley with Nottingham, Leeuwarden and Edinburgh to explore and discover heritage through storytelling. Students from each of the four cities joined their hands to delve deep in our past, our languages, and reimagined it in a very creative way, through songs, plays, interviews. The outcome was a fantastic display of creativity. And a great example of collaboration between sister Cities of Literature.
In 2022, Ljubljana was also a guest of honour at the Granada Book Fair, hosting our authors throughout the week, thus giving them a voice and a chance to present their work in one of the largest book fairs in Spain.
In your opinion, what are the benefits of such a cultural exchange?
With every exchange, every project that we do together, we have a chance to show what a great network of cities we are, so rich in history, rich in stories, with great authors and with a diverse range of languages. We like to say that we want to make the world smaller, meaning bringing together diverse cultures, showing that with literature, freedom of expression and providing safe space for our creative voices, we can bring meaning, and, above all, hope to the world.
The whole range of cities in the network means many possibilities and ideas we can tap into and try them in our own cities – thus taking steps to better our cities and ourselves with it.
Do you know the city of Bremen? What do you associate with Bremen?
All the Cities of Literature read the application of Bremen to become a city of literature, so we know a little about it. And using the information from the application in this interview would be cheating. But the first thing that comes to mind are of course brothers Grimm.
Did not have a chance to explore the city and its cultural aspects, which I’m really looking forward to experiencing. I have no doubt the city is dedicated fully to furthering its cultural potential and investing its resources to solidify its status as a true city of literature.
And since it’s official, congratulations on becoming a UNESCO City of Literature and joining a great literary family. No doubt you deserve it.
