October and November at KROKODIL’s House for Writers

17 Oct October and November at KROKODIL’s House for Writers

In October and November this year, KROKODIL’s writer residency will host two authors – Natassa Sideri from Greece and Żanna Słoniowska from Poland.

Natassa Sideri, the 136th guest of KROKODIL’s writer residency, will be staying in Belgrade from October 15 to 30 as part of the Ulysses’ Shelter project. On Friday, October 25, at 4 PM at KROKODIL’s Center, there will be a private event where local theater playwrights will have the opportunity to meet Nataša and discuss her work in an informal and pleasant atmosphere.

Żanna Słoniowska will stay at KROKODIL’s writer residency as its 137th guest, from October 28 to November 2. The local audience will have the opportunity to meet her on November 1 at 6 PM at KROKODIL’s Center. The event will be moderated by Mila Gavrilović, the translator of Żanna’s works from the Polish Institute in Belgrade, whose support made Żanna’s residency possible. Books by Żanna Słoniowska, published by Dokaz Publishing, will be available for purchase at the event, supporting the occasion.

On October 29 at 6 PM at KROKODIL’s Center, a joint event will be held featuring Natassa Sideri and Żanna Słoniowska, moderated by Milena Berić, KROKODIL’s executive director. The theme of the discussion will be socially engaged literature in European writing, as well as the role of authors in upholding democratic values in contemporary societies. The authors will also speak about countering right-wing political narratives in public discourse, the role of authors in community-building, and the significance and impact of social media as a channel for communicating politically engaged ideas.

Natassa Sideri was born in Athens in 1981. She is a playwright, writer and translator. She has studied Business Administration at the Athens University of Economics and Business, Comparative Politics at the University of York and Contemporary French Philosophy at King’s College London. Her first plays were written and presented in English. In 2013, her debut play “On the Bridge” was the winner of a playwriting contest organized by Origins theater group (Isle of Wright, UK), while in 2014 she won the Ronald Duncan Literary Foundation playwriting contest with “The Island of Immortality”, which was subsequently put on stage by the Certainty of Chance Theater Company. Upon her return to Greece in 2015, she attended the National Theatre’s Playwrighting Studio. In 2016, her short story “Three out of Five” received a commendation at the Greek Writer’s Union annual competition. In 2017, her play “Battle of the Titans” (Sokoli, 2017) was staged at the National Theatre as part of the Writer of the Month initiative aimed at showcasing new voices in contemporary Greek playwriting. In 2018, her first short story collection “Seven Deadly Sins, the GR edition” (Mov Skiouros) came out, winning her the Best Debut in Fiction prize at the annual literary awards of the seminal literary magazine “O Anagnostis”. In 2021, her play “Bound” was awarded first prize at the M Y T H O S ? ! playwriting contest organized jointly by the Theater of Regensburg and the National Theatre of Northern Greece. In 2022, she wrote the texts for the performance “Witches” (dir. Thanasis Dovris), which premiered at the defunct Tavros Municipal Slaughterhouses near the center of Athens. Her short stories and one-act plays have been published internationally.

Żanna Słoniowska was born in Lviv in 1978 and is a Ukrainian-Polish writer. She won the Znak Literary Prize for her novel House with Stained Glass in 2015 and the Conrad Prize for the best Polish literary debut in 2016. The novel was also shortlisted for the Nike Award in 2016. It has been translated into 10 languages, including Ukrainian, English, Russian, French, German, Spanish, Serbian, and Croatian, with Italian and Bengali translations underway. Słoniowska has presented her book at various festivals and literary events across Europe, including the European Festival of the First Novel in Budapest and Kiel, the British Library in London, and the Leipzig Book Fair. In May 2019, she participated in the Franshoek Literary Festival in South Africa. She has received numerous fellowships, including from the Visegrad Fund (2016), the Literarische Coloquium Berlin (2017), and the Baltic Writers and Translators Center in Visby (2017). Her second novel, The Island, was published in Poland in 2019 and in Ukraine in 2020. In 2022, she launched the children’s book Discover Ukraine, and that same year, the Spanish translation of her first novel was published under the title Una vidriera en Leopolis. Słoniowska’s third novel, Wertepy, will be published in 2024 in Poland. For the past 15 years, she has worked as a translator (Polish-Ukrainian-Russian) for numerous cultural institutions in Poland.

Natassa Sideri’s residency is part of the Ulysses’ Shelter project. ULYSSES’ SHELTER: BUILDING WRITERS-IN-RESIDENCE NETWORK is the third phase of a project co-financed by the Creative Europe program of the European Commission. The residency network now includes seven European countries. The project and residency network are primarily aimed at young prose or poetry writers and literary translators. Residencies offer new opportunities to establish connections with other authors, translators, editors, publishers, and/or representatives of various literary organizations from Croatia, Slovenia, Greece, Serbia, the UK, Malta, and the Czech Republic. The project is accompanied by a rich program of literary activities tailored to specific (local) target audiences.

Żanna Słoniowska’s residency was made possible with the help and support of the Polish Institute in Belgrade.