10th BOOK FAIR(Y) IN ISTRIA
Pula Festival of Books and Authors

Theme: Travelogues

2nd – 11th December 2004
House of Croatian Defenders

The jubilee edition of the Fair gave rise to the Cyclops, a yearly award for the accomplishments in the field of Croatian literary production, chosen by the experts in the field – members of the Association of Publishers and Booksellers, Croatian Writers' Association, Croatian Writers' Society, Croatian Society of Children's and Young Adult Literature Writers, Croatian Library Association, Croatian Literary Translators' Association, Department for literature and Department for social sciences at the Croatian Academy of Sciences, along with literary critics and culture reporters – and awarded in 12 categories: Editor, Collection of Books (publishing), Prose Fiction, Literary Debut, Poetry Collection, Essay Book, Non-fiction Book, Children's book, Foreign Author's Book, Translation, Book Design and Hit of the Year. The awards – crafted by the painter and sculptor Josip Diminić – were given on the 8th of December in the Grand Salon of the ship Dalmatia, moored at the dock Carbone, while poet, singer-songwriter, author of film and theater music Arsen Dedić got his first Cyclops for poetry.

The travelogues, the literary adventures describing all sorts of travels, formed the central theme of the Fair. The program Istria Seen Through the Foreigners' Eyes was augmented with a project - similar to the one carried out by colleagues from Slavonia - in which Croatian contemporary authors wrote travelogues about Istria. Naturally, James Joyce, who visited Pula – a maritime Siberia in the middle of nowhere, as he saw it – exactly a hundred years ago, got his rightful place in the Fair's program.

Surely, all the programs that saw success in the past years continued with the participation of contemporary Croatian authors, editors, translators, essay writers, literary critics and notable foreign guests: François Fejtö, Tess Gallagher, Klaus Hensel, Claudio Magris, Sándor Majoros, Rui Nunes, Iztok Osojnik, Orhan Pamuk, Ilja Stogoff and Dragan Velikić.