Andrej Predin

Andrej Predin attended primary and secondary school in Maribor before moving to Ljubljana, where he studied biology. During his studies, he spent a year in China, travelled from Tibet to Hong Kong and explored nature.

His first novel, On a green bough (Na zeleno vejo), was written after his return to Slovenia. After being shortlisted for the Cankar Award, the book raised a lot of dust for its allegedly inappropriate content. This was followed by the novel Teahers (Učiteljice), in which he describes his years as a primary school biology teacher. His third novel, Future Ltd. (Prihodnost d.o.o), completed his Maribor trilogy.

He is currently working on the stories about the little girl Mica (Mary), in collaboration with the renowned illustrator Marijan Manček, which have been translated into English and Turkish. So far, four volumes have been published: Mary at grandma´s: The magic hat (Mica pri babici: Čarobni cilinder), 2013; Mary at grandma´s: Pirates from Merikaka land (Mica pri babici: Pirati iz

dežele Merikaka), 2014, Mary at grandma´s: Out-of-control Princesses (Mica pri babici: Podivjane princeske), 2015; in Mary at grandma´s: Kidnpped Santa Claus (Mica pri babici: Ugrabljeni Božiček), 2018. His picture book on ecology, Yucky Pits (Gnusna kalnica), 2013, earned him a nomination for the Desetnica Award, presented by the youth section of the Slovene Writers' Association. The book has been translated into English and Turkish. In Turkey, it was adapted into a play for children. At the end of 2015, he published a picture book, Ugly onion (Čebula Grdula).

He wrote the script for the music video of the song Ballad (Balada) by Katja Koren. In 2018, an excerpt from his novel On a green bough was included in the Austrian anthology Gegen den Ball. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Maribor National Theatre, he was one of three Maribor authors whose works were staged in the 2019/2020 season. For this purpose, he wrote a dramatisation of the children's play Mary at grandma´s, which premiered on 9 November 2019. He is a member of the Slovene Writers' Association and PEN. In September 2020, he published the picture book Little aliens (Vesoljčki) with Mladinska knjiga, which earned a nomination for a Desetnica Award. The Maribor Puppet Theatre staged the puppet show Bimberli, for which he wrote the dramatisation. He also wrote the script for a cartoon which is currently in production.

With his inexhaustible, characteristic sense of humour and a keen sense of discovering the beauty in the everyday or even the unusual, the author presents young readers with new worlds from a completely different perspective.

Marjan Manček

Marjan Manček is a Slovenian illustrator, comic book artist and film animator, born in 1948 in Novo mesto. He attended primary and secondary school in his native Novo mesto, and graduated from the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana with a degree in English language and History. He was a teacher for a few months and then editor of the youth section of the Borec publishing house for about a year. For thirty-five years he worked freelance as a cartoonist, illustrator and film animator. He published his first cartoons in the humorous weekly Pavliha when he was still in secondary school. During his studies, he earned his living by drawing cartoons and comic shorts for Slovenian and foreign newspapers.

His cartoons were published in two European anthologies of cartoon humour and satire, Opus International (Paris, 1972) and Satyricon (Berlin, 1980). He illustrated more than 200 books (Mojca Pokrajculja (Mary Halpence), Kozlovska sodba v Višnji gori (Višnja gora goat trial), Pedenjped, Kraljična na zrnu graha (The princess and the pea) etc.) and created several cartoon characters (Modri medvedek (Blue Bear), Cufek (Fuzzy), Medvedek Brundo (Hummy Bear), Dajnomir and Miliboža). In 1993, he adapted his comic strip characters, which first appeared in youth magazines, to the medium of animated cartoons. He created an animated trailer and artwork for a puppet for the TV show Radovedni Taček (Curious Pup).

Theatre, film and exhibitions: He has designed the art several puppet shows for the Ljubljana Puppet Theatre (Za devetimi vrati (Behind the Ninth Door), Kozlovska sodba v Višnji Gori (Višnja gora goat trial), Grofič prašič (Count Pig), Vrtec pri stari kozi (Old goat’s kindergarten) etc.) In his career as an illustrator, he has collaborated with many Slovenian poets and writers (Niko Grafenauer, Boris A. Novak, Polonca Kovač, Slavko Pregl, Miroslav Košuta, Berta Golob...). He has had solo and group exhibitions in Slovenia and abroad (Ankara, Bratislava, Barcelona, Udine, etc.), and his films have been screened at film festivals in Portorož, Belgrade, Krakow, Annecy, Chicago and elsewhere.