About the project • Rijeka 2020

The Authorial Boras literary project consisted of writers’ residences at locations in Kvarner that make up Lungomare Art flagship.

The programme selector was Željka Horvat Čeč (link to Željka’s and Kruno’s page), and authors were selected in line with the paradigm “port of differences”, which also represents Rijeka as the European Capital of Culture 2020.

From March to May 2018, selected authors of the region, writing in “bhsc” languages (Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, Montenegrin), spent a month discovering the particularities of Kvarner (each author at their designated location). All of the authors were charged with writing a short prosaic text related to the location they visited.

This unique literary project brought together some of the best and most interesting contemporary writers of the region: Faruk Šehić (the Rijeka fish market), Dorta Jagić (Volosko), Milena Benini (Mošćenička Draga), Vladimir Arsenijević (the beaches of Rijeka), Lejla Kalamujić (Kostrena), Nora Verde (Bakar), Robert Perišić (Crikvenica), Enver Krivac (Zebar), Edo Popović (Baška), Asja Bakić (Lopar), Olja Savičević Ivančević (Filozići), Damir Karakaš (Cres), Tea Tulić (Mali Lošinj), Bekim Sejranović (Susak), Zoran Žmirić (Lovran) and Josip Novakovich, a “bonus” author.

The authors’ stories were published in autumn of 2019 in the form of the book titled Authorial Boras edited by Kruno Lokotar, designed by Studio Sonda and co-published by VBZ.

The selector of the programme “Authorial Boras” is:
ŽELJKA HORVAT ČEČ

Željka Horvat Čeč is a Croatian author, born in Čakovec in 1986. She obtained a Master’s degree in Croatian language and literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Rijeka. She underwent professional training at a publishing academy – editorial sector (2011/2012). She is an ongoing collaborator and/or organiser of the Festival of the European Short Story, Goranovo Proljeće and the Vrisak festival. She is the founder, organiser and manager of literary lectures “Pisac i građanin” (“The Writer and the Citizen”) and organises and moderates numerous literary events. She was a jury member of the Kamov residence. She managed the “Diplomirani gledatelj” (“Viewer with a Degree”) project at the Croatian National Theatre “Ivan pl. Zajc” for the season of 2015/2016. She participated in Deutsche Welle’s international journalism project “Balkan Booster 2017”. She directs creative poetry writing workshops at the CEKAPE creative writing centre.

She published a book of prose “4 brave” (“4 locks”) in 2016, and its excerpts were published in several journals and collections: Kritična masa (final round of the Sedmica award), Ulaznica, Biber (final round of the Biber award), European Literature Network (English translation). She published a poetry collection “Moramo postati konkretni” (“We Have To Become Concrete”) in 2015, which was shortlisted for the Kamov award and was included in Booksa’s top five books published that year. She was included in the anthology “Ima boljih stvari od suhe odjeće” (“There Are Better Things Than Dry Clothes”) of 2007, in the anthology of young regional authors “Meko tkivo” (“Soft Tissue”) of 2015, and the “Le fantôme de la liberté – the Phantom of Liberty” of 2016, an overview of Croatian authors in French. A short overview of her poetry works was published in Swedish under the title “Elva Dikter” (2016). Željka Horvat Čeč publishes works in literary journals (Re, Ulaznica, Tema, Zarez) and appears at numerous Croatian and foreign festivals (Festival of the European Short Story, Littfest, Vrisak, Lit Link, Casanovafest, Pričigin, Goranovo proljeće, Forum Tomizza).
She won first prize at the “Ulaznica za poeziju” competition in 2013, and her poems were translated into English, German, French and Swedish. She is a member of the European poetry platform Versopolis since 2016, as well as the Croatian Writers Society and the Rijeka literary group Ri-Lit. She is an avid fan of the HNK Rijeka football team and frequently attends matches, but would also like to attend Arsenal and Green Bay Packers games.

The editor of the short story collection xxbook titlexx created as a result of the Authorial Boras programme is:
KRUNO LOKOTAR

Kruno Lokotar is a Croatian literary editor, born in Daruvar in 1967. He graduated in Comparative Literature, History and Library Science at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb. He became an editor after many years as a journalist/editor/promoter. Between 2002 and 2007, he was the chief editor at AGM, where he received his first Kiklop award for editor of the year (2005). From 2007 to 2014, he edited domestic and regional works which are his specialty. Since 2014, he has been working as a freelance editor, cultural activist and promoter. He edited over 300 works of Croatian authors.

He is the founder of the following festivals: FAK, KaLibar of Zadar, FALIŠ of Šibenik with Emir Imamović Pirke, Prvi prozak na vrh jezika. As a senior consultant of the Pričigin festival, he is the founder of the Spikigin storytelling scene. He founded the awards Prozak, Na vrh jezika, Post Scriptum – award for social network literature, and created the Fric award. He is a permanent director of the Krokodil festival in Belgrade. He is too busy reading to read as much as he would like.