The main objective of World Book Day on April 23rd is the promotion of reading, publishing and the protection of intellectual property through copyright. To honour this day, various events and activities take place in Maribor, in many other cities of Slovenia and all over the world, dedicated to the book, literature, readers and literary authors.
April 23rd was proclaimed as World Book Day by UNESCO, which chose this date because April 23rd is associated with the names of many famous literary authors (Cervantes, Shakespeare, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Rupert Brooke, William Wordsworth, Maurice Druon, Vladimir Nabokov, Manuel Mejía Vallejo and others who were born or died on this day). The idea of a holiday for the book has its origins in Catalonia, where April 23rd is celebrated as the feast of Saint George, when they traditionally give a flower to everybody who buys a book on that day.
Since 1997, the Youth Cultural Centre Maribor (Mladinski kulturni center Maribor) has been organizer and coordinator of the events in Maribor, that take place during the programme entitled Slovenian Book Days in Maribor (Slovenski dnevi knjige v Mariboru), running several days under the slogan When a book writes you (Ko te napiše knjiga). The initiators of the project were the writers Tomaž Brenk, Borut Gombač and Zdenko Kodrič, who created a festival from the example of an event, organized two years earlier by the Slovenian Writers’ Association in Ljubljana. Since 2004 Petra Kolmančič has managed the festival, during this period for 2007 Jasmina Založnik coordinated the festival and Nino Flisar for 2009. The city centre is enlivened with books, literary authors and literature for the whole week. The festival programme is set in cooperation with many organisations (over 30 local, regional and national associations, institutes, libraries, bookstores, publishing houses, schools), which are in one way or another connected with literature and books.
Festival gatherings of authors, organizers and audience are always perfect bywords for discourse and reflexion as well as a starting point for many subsequent stories and collaborations.
The specific subject of the festival in Maribor is each year’s leading theme. The main themes of previous festivals were:
2012 – metaphor
2011 – literature and music
2010 – literature and humour, electronic and audio books
2009 – literature and movie
2008 – literature of minorities and ethnic groups
2007 – literary translation
2006 – youth literature
2005 – dramatics in 2004 – literature in exile
2003 – life as a way of art – art as a way of life
2002 – here and everywhere 2001 – order and chaos
2000 – relationship between the literary futurism and erotica in literature
1999 – literature and Internet 1998 – When a book writes you, writers of Maribor
During recent years a special day has been dedicated to discussions about the current situation and the future as well as the strategy of electronic publishing and of e-books in Slovenia.
Extent and types of events: literary performances of individual artists on open stage, round table discussions on literature and literary theory, thematic book exhibitions in UKM, poetry tournament – competition of selected poems tournament for the title of Knight of poetry, literary symposium, connected to the main annual theme, the campaign Give away a book, literary-musical performances and evenings of musical poetry, performances of plays for children, evening of aphorism and satire, young people and literature: rap poetry and high school literary-musical marathon, foreign literary guests, a major guest, book fair and presentations of book publishing houses, open literary microphone in the main square, discussions on literature, literary group marathons, lectures, literary prize contest in interpreting own poetry. All together, more than 50 individual literary and para-literary events.
Program coordination: Petra Kolmančič
Program committee: Dragica Haramija, Nino Flisar, Borut Gombač, Petra Kolmančič, Milena Pivec, Marjan Pungartnik, Vlasta Stavbar, Klemen Brvar
Program staff: Darka Tancer Kajnih, Zora A. Jurič, Vesna Spreitzer