24th BOOK FAIR(Y) IN ISTRIA
Pula Festival of Books and Authors

Theme: Freedom

29th November – 9th December 2018
House of Croatian Defenders

The fact that the Fair occurs in Pula, that it cultivates local heritage and emphasizes the multidimensionality of Istrian languages, ethnicities, and cultures, and that it predominantly hosts Croatian authors and publishers never got in the way of the Pula Festival of Books and Authors' having a regional, and of course, European and global character.
Following that course, after presenting the literary production from Belgrade, Vojvodina, Sarajevo, Bosnia, Montenegro, Ljubljana, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Herzegovina etc. the guest country of the Fair was Republic of North Macedonia – similarly multilingual, multicultural, and, from the perspective of poetic diversity, a highly dynamic country marked by a pulsating literary scene, renown outside of the national borders.

The poet Nikola Madžirov justified the attention he attracted among the audience with his poetic-musical performance. What rendered it different from the one that took place in New York, apart from the time and place, of course, was the lineup – Istrian musician Dario Marušić accompanied him on violin instead of Oliver Lake, American jazz musician, colleague, and music arranger of Björk and Loua Reeda or Angelo Inglese, Italian composer of classical music.

On the occasion of North Macedonia being the guest country, the Croatian translation of the selection of plays by the great Macedonian playwright Goran Stefanovski was published for the first time.
After hosting Umberto Eco and Orhan Pamuk, the Fair was officially proclaimed open by another Nobel Prize Winner in literature, Wole Soyinka, while one of the most crowded events was the talk with the prominent and widely influential philosopher, Peter Sloterdijk.

This edition of the Book Fair(y) in Istria – Pula Festival of Books and Authors was dedicated to the late Predrag Lucić, a writer, poet, journalist, playwright, theatre director, and genius from Split who prematurely passed away.