HEINRICH BOELL – THE MAN WITH THE KNIVES

14 Nov HEINRICH BOELL – THE MAN WITH THE KNIVES

101th anniversary of the birth of Heinrich Boell presents a perfect, albeit slightly offcenter opportunity to reconsider both literary and political legacy of one of the most prominent writers of the twentieth century and their significance today. To this end, Heinrich Boell Stiftung Serbia and Association KROKODIL reached the joint decision to cooperate in order to present a program entitled “HENRICH BOELL – THE MAN WITH THE KNIVES” The mission of this project is to analyze, creatively extend and update to a certain extent the mentioned dual legacy of Heinrich Boell through active engagament of a group of three prominent young Serbian writers of both sexes who are using different forms of expression (fiction, drama, poetry, essay etc.) in their creative work. Those are Tanja Šljivar (playwright), Dragana Mladenović (poet) and Bojan Marjanović (prose writer and essayist). All three writers, who do not shy away for juxtaposing social and political activism with their literary work will be engaged in the creative process either directly or loosely based on existing thematic circles as defined by Heinrich Boell himself throughout his writing career that spanned almost 40 years. The main question that we would like to hear their replies to is: “What does it mean it to be political in contemporary literature in the region of former Yugoslavia?”

Program duration: 3 months, October-December 2018.

2) PARTICIPANTS The writers that take part in the program HB101/THE MAN WITH THE KNIVES are as follows: 1. Tanja Šljivar, dramatist

2. Bojan Marjanović, prose writer, poet, journalist and activist 3. Dragana Mladenović, poet + Tanja Dueckers, writer and journalist

Project leader: Vladimir Arsenijević, prose writer and cultural worker

3) PROJECT ACTIVITES The project starts on October 1, 2018 and lasts three months or until the end of December 2018. It consists of 1) Preliminary meetings and Getting to know Heinrich Boell and his oeuvre (October 2018); 3) Creative work of participants (November 2018); and 3) Promotion (December 2018).

1) Preliminary meetings and Getting to know Heinrich Boell and his oeuvre – chosen authors/participants gather and discuss the project with the project leader as well as their respective roles within it. Authors/participants are provided with copies of translation of various works of Heinrich Boell to any of the variants of the common language of the Western Balkans (formerly known as Serbo-Croatian) and decide upon their respective approaches towards the creative work that would follow. All authors/participants read chosen works by Heinrich Boell and send to the project leader their synopses discussing the approach to their creative continuation or addendum of the chosen work by Heinrich Boell. Tanja Dueckers, an expert on Heinrich Boell and his literature, will be a guest of KROKODIL’s residence for writers throughout the month of October and will, as a part of this residential program executed in cooperation with the Goethe Institute, hold a literary evening (at KROKODIL’s Center for Contemporary Literature) dedicated to Heinrich Boell as political writer par excellence. The presence of authors/participants is expected. The day after, the special meeting and workshop of authors/participants and Tanja Dueckers will be arranged in KROKODIL’s Center for Contemporary Literature the aim of which is to shed additional light to the life and work of this writer for the sake of deepening the knowledge of authors/participants and provide a positive influence on their creative work to follow.

2) Creative work of writers/participants – all authors/participants use the month of November to intensely work on their written contributions to the HB101 project.

3) Promotion – The works provided by authors/participants are gathered and edited. The additional texts by project leader and (possibly) Tanja Dueckers are also obtained. The works are translated and the manuscript is prepared for publication (proofreading and correction, design & layout, pre-print and print, distribution). The work as well as the project and, last but not the least, the legacy of Heinrich Boell are actively promoted via the series of public events and in the online and offline media.