• Publisher: ŠKUC
• Author: Vesna Lemaić
• Original title: Kokoška in ptiči

The novel, A Chicken and Birds is a book about resistance, search for power, and self-or- ganising in the time of crisis. In the foreground, there are events happening between the years 2011-2012, when protesters – following Occupy movement – occupied the platform in front of Ljubljana stock exchange building, and camped there for 6 months in the camp named Fight For. A protagonist who is looking for a community in which she could express her unrest and join the wider revolt against capitalism, also nestles there. She is completely overtaken by political actions and social fermentation. But the more that she pushes away the personal, the intimate, the stronger they appear, the louder their babble, reminding her of their existence. There are her girlfriend, with whom she spends less and less time, and her grandmother, who was the activist of illegal Yugoslav revolutionary communist youth during WW2, waiting for her at home. The author is speaking – under the surface of events – about hidden sprockets of interpersonal relationships and love, uncertainty and precariousness, the search for one’s own place in society, and giving meaning to resistance. Meanwhile, the novel is written in an experiential and humorous way, and with a fair share of self-irony.

About the author

Vesna Lemaić

Vesna Lemaić (1981) graduated from Comparative Literature. She introduced herself as a writer in 2008, with her first book Popularne zgodbe (Popular Stories). In 2010, the novel Odlagališče (Landfill) was published, followed in 2014 by Kokoška in ptiči (A Chicken and Birds) and, in 2018, the book of short stories Dobrodošli (Welcome). For Radio Slovenia, she wrote the audio play Podpotnik (Subtrotter). One of her stories was included into the anthology Best European Fiction. Her work has received several awards, including the Slovenian Book Fair Award, the Fabula Award for the best book of short stories and the Golden Bird Award for literature. Lemaić conducts writing workshops for the young and experimental workshops that focus on group writing. For more than five years, she has also participated in organizing the Living Literature Festival in Ljubljana.