State Secretary Benčina at the opening of 25th Vilenica International Literary Festival

State Secretary Benčina at the opening of 25th Vilenica International Literary Festival

Ljubljana, 2 September 2010 - Yesterday, State Secretary Dragoljuba Benčina attended the opening ceremony of the 25th Vilenica International Literary Festival. The State Secretary talked about the importance of reading and expressed her hope that, in this period of modern technologies, the reading culture would nevertheless persevere, since "books allow us to find ourselves and others, to see that there are different paths that can be taken and to absorb fresh knowledge." She wished the organisers every success in their continued efforts, and that the participants enjoyed the festival's various literary pleasures and challenging expert debates.

The State Secretary congratulated the two key figures of this year's festival, Vilenica 2010 Prize winner Dževad Karahasan, and the principal Slovenian author, Tomaž Šalamun.

This year's opening ceremony was also an opportunity to award the Fellowship for Writers, presented by the Central European Initiative (CEI) in collaboration with the Slovene Writers' Association. The fifth Fellowship for Writers was awarded by the CEI Secretary General, Gerhard Pfanzelter, to Croatian author, Maja Hrgović. The participants were also addressed by Aleksander Peršolja, one of the founding fathers of the festival, and Milan Jesih, President of the Slovene Writers' Association.

The event was attended by Tomaž Šalamun and four foreign authors, C. D. Wright (USA), Agnė Žargakalytė (Lithuania), Viktória Radics (Hungary) and Kristin Dimitrova (Bulgaria), who all read from their works.

After the ceremony, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs organised a reception for the participants.

Source: http://www.mzz.gov.si/nc/en/tools/cns/news/article/141/27350/