By: C. R.
The parliamentary group of the Slovenian Democratic Party demands the convening of an urgent session of the Committee for Culture to discuss the item “Exclusion of Boris Pahor from the list of Slovenian authors at the Frankfurt Book Fair”.
This year’s Frankfurt Book Fair (FBF), which will take place from October 18th to 22nd, will be the 75th edition. In these polarising times of international transitions, the fair aims to provide a space for understanding and dialogue, while sending out important literary and socio-political messages to the world. Slovenia will be the honorary guest at the fair, taking over the title from Spain, which held it last year.
Spain presented itself under the slogan “Sparkling Creativity”, while Slovenia intends to showcase its literary creativity to international publishers and readers with the slogan “The Labyrinth of Words”. The main themes of Slovenia’s presentation are the innovation and creativity of small publishers, the importance of reading books, and European linguistic diversity. Slovenia has prepared 250 events and will present 65 writers, including 34 female authors and 31 male authors.
According to the programme curator Miha Kovač, the focus will be on authors with the most translations into foreign languages, including German. He highlighted Slavoj Žižek, Evald Flisar, Drago Jančar, Goran Vojnović, Aleš Šteger, Lila Prap, Manica Musil, and Jana Bauer. They will also introduce authors from the Slovenian diaspora, such as Florjan Lipuš, Dušan Jelinčič, and Maja Haderlap, genre literature, as well as several deceased authors, including Slavko Grum, Srečko Kosovel, Tomaž Šalamun, Maruša Krese, and Alma Karlin, who will have a special exhibition dedicated to her at Haus am Dom.
It is during the mention of these authors that we come across a surprising fact. Boris Pahor has apparently been excluded from the list of Slovenian authors to be presented at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair.
There is no doubt that Boris Pahor has left a profound mark on Slovenian and European art and culture after World War II, with his powerful existential and socially engaged content, and high aesthetic and moral standards. His influence is of such depth that even the most globalised and technologised modernity will not be able to ignore it. Therefore, his formalistic exclusion from the list of Slovenian authors to be presented at this year’s book fair in Frankfurt is unreasonable and highly incomprehensible, stated the SDS.
“In the Slovenian Democratic Party, we are outraged by the fact that the President of UEFA, Aleksander Čeferin, will be able to participate in the FBF and discuss the connection between sports and literature, while there will be no place for one of the most translated artists with a highly qualitative literary opus and the recipient of the European Citizen Award, Boris Pahor. For the aforementioned reasons, we demand the convening of an urgent session of the Committee for Culture.”