The Midsummer Eve in Slovenia is traditionally booked for the Kresnik Award for the best novel of the year. Every year, over one hundred novels enter the selection process, while the jury chooses the nominees. The winner is announced at the ceremony, where he or she receives a cash prize and is given the honour of lighting the traditional bonfire at the top of the Rožnik hill accompanied by the midsummer procession.This year's final five nominees were: Mojca Kumerdej, Tadej Golob, Gašper Kralj, Tomo Podstenšek and Goran Vojnović. Finally and after much deliberation, the 2017 Kresnik Award was awarded to Goran Vojnović for his fascinating novel The Fig Tree (Figa).

At the yearly National Publishing Congress on June 6th we hosted Suhrkamp's Petra Hardt and translated her book Buying, Protecting and Selling Rights. In addition to the lecture she gave at the congress, she had a workshop on rights issues at the Faculty of Law of the University of Ljubljana, where also the picture was taken.

On 8 April, also known as International Romani Day, the French Phébus publishing house (part of the Libella Group) published Liza Japelj Carone’s French translation of the novel Namesto koga roža cveti titled Halgato, penned by Feri Lainšček, one of the most acclaimed representatives of contemporary Slovenian literature. Before the book’s official launch, a French delegation of journalists and Phébus representative travelled to Slovenia to visit the enchanting region of Prekmurje, the main inspiration for Lainšček’s works.During the occasion, an interview with Nils Ahl, editor-in-chief of Phébus’s literary translations department was done. What follows is a brief summary of the conversation.

On 8 April, also known as International Romani Day, the French Phébus publishing house published Liza Japelj Carone’s French translation of Feri Lainšček’s novel Namesto koga roža cveti, titled Halgato. Before the book’s official launch, a French delegation of journalists along with Phébus representative Nathalie Baravian travelled to Slovenia to visit the enchanting region of Prekmurje, the main inspiration for Lainšček’s works.

The Leipzig Book Fair, the second largest fair of such kind in Germany, closed its doors on 26 March 2017 after an intense four days of numerous activities. While the leading Frankfurt Book Fair is predominantly focused on publishers, the Leipzig fest focuses on the readers – particularly with the reader-oriented festival “Leipzig liest”.

This Young Adults/crossover novel by Slovenian writer Suzana Tratnik (b. 1963), a multiple literary award winner, was recently released in Slovenian. The author will be present at the Leipzig Book Fair, introducing her novel (some years after her success with the German translation of the novel My Name is Damian) to audiences at the fairground and in the city.

The Leipzig Book Fair starts on Wednesday, 23 March 2017. We kindly invite all interested literature aficionados to visit events with Slovenian authors at the fair and throughout the city of Leipzig as part of the "Leipzig liest" festival. You can find the Slovenian national stand at the Fair in Hall 4.0., D503.

Slovenian contemporary literary classic Drago Jančar, who is also well known to international readers, is among Julian Barnes and Jonathan Franzen one of the nominees for prestigious russian Yasnaya Polyana Foreign Fiction Award, which recognizes the most significant foreign book of the year written in the 21st century, and its Russian translation.