{"id":244551,"date":"2025-07-27T19:50:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T17:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/?p=244551"},"modified":"2025-11-04T13:04:47","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T12:04:47","slug":"biber-at-slovo-gorcina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/biber-at-slovo-gorcina\/","title":{"rendered":"Biber at Slovo Gor\u010dina"},"content":{"rendered":"

The multilingual collection Biber 06<\/a> from the regional Biber Short Story Contest was presented at the 54th edition of the Slovo Gor\u010dina Culture Festival in Stolac, on Sunday 27 July 2025.<\/p>\n

The presentation was organised by the Slovo Gor\u010dina Culture Festival<\/a> and the Centre for Nonviolent Action Sarajevo\/Belgrade<\/a>, a peace organisation that runs the Biber Contest.<\/p>\n

The Slovo Gor\u010dina Culture Festival<\/em> is one of the most important cultural events in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with its first edition dating back to 1971. Conceived by Mehmedalija Mak Dizdar, the Festival has been held in Stolac from the very beginning, at the Radimlja ste\u0107ak<\/em> necropolis and other significant locations. Its mission is to bring the best of contemporary art and culture to the poet\u2019s hometown. The participants of this year\u2019s Festival included, among others: Adania Shibli, \u0160emsa Gavrankapetanovi\u0107, Amila Smajovi\u0107, Adisa Ba\u0161i\u0107, Ermina Ribi\u0107, Damir Uzunovi\u0107, Nenad Rizvanovi\u0107, Almin Kaplan, Monika Herceg, Igor Borozan, Jasmila \u017dbani\u0107.<\/p>\n

The following people spoke at the presentation of the Biber 06 Short Story Collection: Almin Kaplan<\/strong> from Stolac, member of the Biber 06 Contest jury, Monika Herceg<\/strong>, a writer from Zagreb, Bojana Savi\u0107<\/strong>, a writer from Belgrade, and Emina \u0110elilovi\u0107 Kevri\u0107<\/strong>, a writer from Vitez. Ivana Franovi\u0107<\/strong> from the Biber Team<\/a> spoke about the original idea of the Biber Contest, the six collections published so far, and future plans. The discussion was moderated by Zejneba Hajdarevi\u0107<\/strong> from the Slovo Gor\u010dina Culture Festival.<\/p>\n

Speaking as a member of the Biber 06 Contest jury, Almin Kaplan said that it was very difficult to choose 20 stories from around 100 that the jury received to read, and that every selection is necessarily subjective. He noted that \u201cliterature, including Biber, can help us understand each other better, even those we think we understand well. In BiH, xenophobia is institutionally encouraged, and Biber is helping us resist this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Monika Herceg<\/a>, a writer from Zagreb and winner of the second prize in the Biber 06 Contest, commented on a remark that hardly anyone reads these days, saying that she disagreed and that the paradigm that nobody reads should be replaced with the paradigm that everybody reads. \u201cThose who ask why we\u2019re still writing about war, or women, or poverty, are in fact privileged. You write about what must be written about. In my neck of the woods, the war is still topical, and will continue to be topical, because it needs to be written about and should be written about for as long as this can help to change things for the better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emina \u0110elilovi\u0107 Kevri\u0107<\/a>, a writer from Vitez, emphasised that she came from a divided town where spiritual and all other kinds of borders persist, as well as the phenomenon of two schools under one roof. \u201cIt\u2019s an abyss of absurdity in which we live. Biber is here, among other things, to help us reconcile with ourselves and also with others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ivana Franovi\u0107 underlined that there\u2019s fatigue with how we talk about the war, but that if the war is discussed in a constructive way, that fatigue doesn\u2019t come on, because people are hungry for a constructive approach. \u201cIn Serbia, the topic of war isn\u2019t widely represented in literature, so I\u2019m always happy to see writers choose to take that step, because it needs to be addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bojana Savi\u0107<\/a>, a writer from Belgrade whose story was published in the Biber 06 Collection, added: \u201cIn Serbia, there was no direct experience of war. I was seven years old when the war started and so I can speak from the perspective of children who were taught that there were some enemies out there. Alongside that, there was also the imposition of guilt. However, there\u2019s also a huge amount of denial in Serbia and an attitude that we have nothing to do with it. It\u2019s important to me that Biber includes the perspectives of everyone, even those who weren\u2019t directly involved in the war.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 6th Biber Contest<\/a> was open from 8 December 2023 to 26 May 2024. A total of 490 stories were submitted. The jury, comprising Almin Kaplan, Jasna Dimitrijevi\u0107 and Tanja Stupar Trifunovi\u0107, selected 24 stories to be included in the multilingual collection and decided on the prizes. One story was selected for the collection by the Biber Organising Team.<\/p>\n

The prize-winning stories are: \u201cDje\u010dak koji je volio zvona\u201d (The Boy Who Loved Bells)<\/a> by Vladimira Beci\u0107 from Dugo Selo \u2013 first prize; \u201cTijela od vode\u201d (Bodies of Water<\/a>) by Monika Herceg from Zagreb \u2013 second prize; and \u201cErz\u00e4hle mir etwas \u00fcber dich\u201d (Tell Me Something About Yourself)<\/a> by Danijela Repman from Sombor \u2013 third prize.<\/p>\n

Translations into Albanian were done by Qerim Ondozi and Ilir Ajdini, translations into Macedonian by \u0110oko Zdraveski, Ivan \u0160opov and Ilir Ajdini, and translations into BCSM by \u0110or\u0111e Bo\u017eovi\u0107, Lidija Bari\u0107 and Irena \u0160entevska. Jana Danilovi\u0107 designed the cover illustration.<\/p>\n

The short story collection we presented in Stolac resulted from the Biber Contest for short stories about reconciliation in the context of the legacy of the wars and violence in the countries of former Yugoslavia, as well as stories contributing to better understanding among people, reducing hatred and dismantling prejudice, anti-war stories, stories about dealing with the past, deconstructing images of the enemy, empathy, brave stories that dare walk in the \u201cenemy\u2019s\u201d shoes, stories that push boundaries and open up the way to build a more stable, safer and freer future for all.<\/p>\n

Electronic editions of all Biber Collections<\/a> can be downloaded for free from the Biber website. The new Biber 07 Contest will be announced in December 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The multilingual collection Biber 06 from the regional Biber Short Story Contest was presented at the 54th edition of the Slovo Gor\u010dina Culture Festival in Stolac, on Sunday 27 July 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244424,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73,78],"tags":[1844,304,146,2138],"class_list":["post-244551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-promo","category-news","tag-biber-contest","tag-peacebuilding","tag-reconciliation","tag-regional-cooperation-en"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244551"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":244553,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244551\/revisions\/244553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}