Online panel - Translational as Transnational: New Passages of Understanding

In celebration of  the 2021 Croatian Book Month and the 2021 Croatian Year of Reading,  American Corner Zagreb hosts Ivan Sršen and Buzz Poole, Croatian and American founders and editors of Sandorf Passage, an independent non-profit publishing house, for an online panel: “Translational as Transnational: New Passages of Understanding’’ with the two writers whose works have been published by Sandorf Passage:: Lejla Kalamujić, short story writer, essayist and reviewer, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Vesna Marić, memoir writer, novelist and travel writer, journalist, Great Britain.

Our guests, the panelists will talk about Sandorf Passage and its publishing vision, and the importance of bringing translations of works written by writers from Croatia and the former Yugoslavia into the English-language market.

The program is organized by American Corner Zagreb as part of a literary program supported by U.S. Embassy Zagreb. With this panel we launch ‘’Literary Connections’’ with a goal to introduce writers, publishers, translators and readers from both sides of the world and to make connections which inspire multicultural understanding.

This event will take place over Zoom and  registration is required.
Register at amcornerzg@gmail.com: to receive a Zoom link to participate, register with your email address until 4 November at noon.

About the panellists:
 
Ivan Sršen was born in 1979 in Zagreb, where he graduated in history and linguistics at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Studies. Since 2001 he has been working in publishing, and since 2004 he worked as an editor for several publishing companies. He edited numerous editions from the sphere of music, politics, economy and literature. In 2008 he co-founded Sandorf Publishing, which is today one of the strongest independent houses in the region, publishing literature from ex-Yugoslavia, as well as books from a wide range of humanities, including many translations. He published a novel Harmattan (published in Greek as Favlos kiklos) a book of short stories Fairy Tales from the Coffee Machine, an interview with the famous Italian comic book author Max Bunker Hello, Bing and co-authored a non-fiction book History of Zagreb Libraries. He edited a short story collection Zagreb Noir, published by Akashic Books in the USA and by Durieux in Croatia. In 2018, his short story Surprise was featured in the collection Balkan Noir published by the Greek publisher Kastaniotis. His translated works appeared in the renowned literary publications such as Lit Hub and New York Review of Books. He publishes newspaper articles, reports and short prose in magazines, along with translating literary titles from English. With the American editor and writer Buzz Poole, Ivan has launched the American branch of the Croatian publisher Sandorf, called Sandorf Passage, an independent nonprofit publishing house. He lives and works in Zagreb.

https://hrvatskodrustvopisaca.hr/en/clanstvo/clan/ivan-srsen
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/85024-sandorf-passage-publishing-house-launches.html
https://croatian-literature.hr/zzindex_sing.php?tekst_id=664&menu_id=1

Buzz Poole is a Maine-based editor and writer; his work has appeared in numerous media outlets.
Buzz has written about books, design, music, and culture for numerous outlets, including LitHub, Print, Playboy, The Village Voice, The Believer, Los Angeles Review of Books, San Francisco Chronicle, and The Millions. He is the author of the story collection I Like to Keep My Troubles on the Windy Side of Things.
Buzz studied literature in college as an undergraduate and then graduate student at San Francisco State University. He moved to New York where he worked as editor at Mark Batty Publisher (MBP), and moved on to be Managing Director of Black Balloon Publishing, which is now an imprint of Catapult. Buzz Polle is the cofounder and editor of Sandorf Passage, the American branch of the Croatian publisher Sandorf.

https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/contributor/buzz-poole
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/author/buzz-poole/
https://croatian-literature.hr/zzindex_sing.php?tekst_id=664&menu_id=1

Lejla Kalamujić, born in 1980 in Sarajevo, graduated at the Department of Philosophy and Sociology at the University of Sarajevo. She writes prose, essays, and reviews that are published in magazines and web portals in Bosnia and Herzegovina and other countries of the region. For her book of short stories Zovite me Esteban, she received the Edo Budiša Prize 2015 and was shortlisted for the European Union Prize for Literature 2016. She has won many literary awards for short stories and was awarded various residencies and fellowships.
Her stories have been translated into English, German, French, Macedonian, Slovene, Polish, Romanian, Albanian and Lithuanian.

https://traduki.eu/database-en/6469/lejla-kalamujic-2/
https://www.readingbalkans.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Goga-book-proposal-Kalamujic-Call-Me-Esteban.pdf

Vesna Marić was born in Mostar in 1976. When she was sixteen she left Bosnia-Herzegovina and travelled to the UK, an experience she tells in her best-selling novel ‘Bluebird: A Memoir’ for which she was on the long list for an Orwell Prize for literature in 2010.
She lived in Hull and Exeter, and studied Czech literature at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London before working for the BBC World Service. She is a travel writer and journalist who has worked for Lonely Planet,  Time Out and BBC Online. She also translates literary fiction and non-fiction from Croatian into English, and writes a variety of journalism for publications including the Guardian. Vesna has collaborated with various artists, including Jane and Louise Wilson, and art projects at the Tate Modern and the London Southbank. Vesna lives in London and her first novel has been published by Sandorf Passage in 2021.

http://www.tracesproject.org/vesna-maric/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bluebird-Memoir-Vesna-Maric/dp/1847081193


For a list of works by our panelists check out the online catalog of the Zagreb City Libraries.