Contemporary European poetry

Anja Zag Golob is a poet, a columnist for the national radio, a translator from German and English, and the editor-in-chief and co-founder of an independent publishing house called VigeVageKnjige, specializing in children’s comics and graphic novels for (young) adults. She has published four poetry collections in Slovene and has been honoured with the Jenko Award for the best poetry collection twice (2014, 2016) and the Kritiško sito Award for the best Slovene book (2020). Her poems have been translated into over 10 languages and have appeared in several anthologies. She resides with her family in Ljubljana and Maribor.

Harri Hertell is a Helsinki-based Finnish poet, a DJ, and a poetry event producer. He has authored seven poetry collections, a non-fiction book on performance poetry, and has released four spoken word recordings. In autumn 2022, he published his first poetry book for children.

Hertell received the Uusimaa Art Prize in 2021 and founded the Helsinki Poetry Connection collective in 2008. Hertell’s poetry captures the wonder and complexity of daily life with compassion, unfiltered honesty, and with an eye for minutiae. His work explores themes such as parenthood, mental health, collective ethical dilemmas, and humanity’s relationship with nature. His poetry has been translated into multiple languages, and he has performed across several European countries. His first English poetry book, “All Emotions Allowed,” is set to be published in autumn 2023.

Radmila Petrović was born in Užice, Serbia. She holds a master’s degree in Economics from the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade. Petrović is a highly sought-after poet in former Yugoslavia, with her work featured in anthologies, national and international journals, and numerous festivals and poetry readings across Europe. She won the 42nd Lim River Poetry Evenings and published a collection of poems titled “The Scent of Earth” in 2014. As the winner of the 22nd Poetry Competition “Desanka Maksimović,” she released “Cellulose Rock ‘n’ Roll” in 2015. Her third poetry collection, “My Mom Knows the Kind of Things that Happen in Cities,” published by PPM Enklava in 2020, has sold over 12,000 copies, been translated into multiple languages, and was shortlisted for all the most important poetry awards in Serbia, as well as for the regional poetry award Stjepan Gulin. She has participated in writing residencies in various countries.

Małgorzata Lebda grew up in Żeleźnikowa Wielka, a village in the Beskid Mountains. She is the author of six volumes of poetry, including “Matecznik” (Queen Cells, awarded a Scholarship at Stanisław Barańczak) and “Sny uckermarkerów” (Uckermarker Dreams, awarded at Gdynia Literary Prize). Her most recent poetry book, “Mer de Glace,” has won the “Wisława Szymborska Award” and has been shortlisted for the “Silesius Literary Award.” Her books have been translated into Serbian, Italian, Ukrainian, Czech, and Slovenian. In addition to her literary pursuits, she is a scientist, a columnist, a culture animator, and an ultramarathon runner. In September 2021, she ran a 1113 kilometer distance along the Vistula River to draw attention to the issue of river destruction. Lebda is currently working on her debut prose project and resides in Krakow, regularly embarking on journeys. Her prose debut “Łakome” was published in 2023 and was recently named “Empik Discovery 2023”

Simon studied Aesthetics, Literature and Creative writing at Pázmány Péter University and later graduated at Károli Gáspár University. He holds a BA and an MA of Japanese Language and Studies. Simon has published four collections of poetry thus far: Songs for 3:45 AM (2010), Polaroids (2013), Fox Wedding (2018) and At Night in the Kitchen I Wanted to Talk to You (2021), and a spoken word mixtape Before You Begin to Speak (2017). He has been the participant of many slam poetry events (since 2011), and a few of the National Championships (2012-2016), as well. He performed in Serbia, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and Italy, too. He has participated in the Spoke’n’Word Festival in Warsaw (2012, 2014) and the Transpoesie Festival in Brussels (2014). He has translated novels from English (e.g. the works of Jennifer Egan, Etgar Keret, John Waters) and modernist poetry from Japanese (Ryuichi Tamura, Nobuo Ayukawa, Sakutaro Hagiwara and more). In addiiton, he has organized countless workshops for creative writing and other literary events. His poetry collections are in a constant reprint. He is without a doubt one of the most widely read Hungarian authors of the last decade.