Sylva Fischerová

Invitado de Honor

Sylva Fischerová (1963, Prague) is a Czech poet, writer and classical philologist. She was born in Prague, but she lived in Olomouc until the age of eighteen. Her debut publication The Tremor of Racehorses / Chvění závodních koní (Bloodaxe Books, 1990) was released in 1986. She is the author of twelve poetry collections, and also writes short stories, novels, children’s stories and academic papers. Her poems have been translated into many languages, three books having been published in the UK and the USA, with her works of prose being published in various languages including English, German, Dutch, Portuguese and Polish. Her work has also been incorporated into two albums by the singer Monika Načeva. In 2018 Fischerová became the first Poet Laureate of Prague, the city where she lives and lectures on ancient Greek literature, theology and philosophy at Charles University. Her most recent published works include a love story set in 1980s Prague entitled Elza and the Toadstool / Elza a muchomůrka (2022) and the poetry collection A Different Life. Wittgenstein / Jiný život. Wittgenstein (2023).

Other activities involving the participant:

The value of poetry in everyday life

Peter Svetina

Invitado de Honor

Peter Svetina was born in 1970 in Ljubljana. In 1995 he graduated in Slovenian Studies and defended his PhD thesis on Old Slovenian Poetry in 2001 (both at Faculty for Arts, University Ljubljana, Slovenia). He is an associate professor for Slavic literature at the Institute for Slavic languages, Alpen-Adria University, Klagenfurt, Austria. He writes for children, young adults and adults, but his work often crosses the borders between different target audiences and can be read as crossover literature. His literary debut was a picture book called The Walrus who Didn’t Want to Cut his Nails (1999), which soon served as the basis for a puppet play, a path later followed by many of his works (e.g. Mr. Constantine’s Hat). His books for children and youth have been translated into English, German, Spanish, Korean, Polish, Latvian, Estonian, and Lithuanian. Svetina’s works often play with occurrences and images from his everyday life. They reflect not only his hometown of Ljubljana and the destinations of his travels, but also his scholarly interests – Svetina’s scientific research is focused on old Slovenian poetry, children’s and youth literature (especially its socially and politically directed transformation after World War II), and detective novels. He translates poetry and children’s literature from English, German, Croatian, and Czech and works as an editor for poetry collections and literature textbooks for primary school. His books have received some of the most prestigious national and international awards and are immensely popular among literary critics as well as young readers.

Other activities involving the participant:

The value of poetry in everyday life

Elena Alexieva

Invitado de Honor

Elena Alexieva writes short stories, novels and plays. Some of her short story collections are Readers’ Group 31, Who, The Breaking of Samsara, while her novels include Night, Devil and Death, The Nobel Laureate, and others. As a playwright, she has received the Askeer and Ikar national awards for new Bulgarian drama. Her plays have been collected in two volumes, Angel Fire and Victims of Love.  She is also winner of the Helikon Prize for modern Bulgarian fiction, The Quill Prize and others, and her novel Saint Wolf was Novel of the Year for 2019. Her latest book is yet another novel, Vulcan (2023). 
Her books have been translated in French, Spanish, Russian, Macedonian and Arabic. 
Elena lives in Sofia and works as a freelance interpreter. She is also the Bulgarian translator of William Faulkner’s The Wishing Tree and The Wild Palms. 

Other activities involving the participant:

Stories of exclusion. Fight with words
Authors and literature in the face of crises

Jacqueline Santos

Estudió la carrera de Lengua y Literatura Hispánicas en la Universidad Autónoma de México (UNAM). Realizó estudios de portugués en la Casa do Brasil y obtuvo el Diploma Universitário de Português Língua Estrangeira por parte de la Universidad de Lisboa en 2010. Paralelamente siguió cursos universitarios de Literatura Lusófona con especialidad en África.

Ha trabajado como profesora, traductora, editora y correctora de estilo para la UNAM, el Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) y el Instituto Panamericano de Geografía e Historia (IPGH), Organismo Especializado de la Organización de los Estados Americanos (OEA).