Hannah and I have just come back from Slovenia. We had the privilege of attending the annual UNESCO Cities of Literature conference in Ljubljana, our sister city, who is also celebrating 10 years as a UNESCO City of Literature this year.
One of the best things about being a UNESCO City of Literature is, as said by our Coordinator Kjartan, that “the network opens the door to the whole world”. The conference has been a great reminder that Nottingham is part of this amazing international network of people that deeply care about literature and how words can contribute to changing the world. We met with 55 international colleagues from 40 cities including Melbourne, Okayama, Slemani, Jakarta, Seattle, Quebec City, Barcelona, Milan, and many more.
The conference offered an opportunity to get people together from the UNESCO Cities of Literature, to share best practices, to hear about their work and to talk about all the great work we do here in Nottingham. It is also one of the few, if not only time of the year, where we come together as a cluster to discuss how we work, partnership opportunities and how we can work better together, including how we are promoting freedom of speech and freedom of expression, which are so needed in the world we live in today.
I presented our Young Writers Residency project at Bromley House Library, which was highly praised by our colleagues from other international cities, due to the lasting impact this opportunity had on our two fantastic young writers. We heard about the Crime Book Festival and Trail in Lyon, France; the work of Okoyama, Japan, with literature and children in care homes; the werewolves’ trail at Tukums, Latvia; the children’s poetry night in Utrecht, the Netherlands, a sleepover at the Utrecht Library, part of the Children’s Book Festival. There were so many more inspiring presentations by colleagues from other cities.
Within our very full packed schedule, we got to experience the Slovenian literary scene and Ljubljana’s cultural spaces, we heard from Slovenian major literary festivals and literature projects; and got to meet fantastic Slovenian writers and translators. We had the joy of visiting Vodnik Homestead, Ljubljana’s Literary House. To see the Ljubljana City of Literature team have their own building: with a book shop, reading areas for adults and children, two performing spaces, an exhibition space for book illustrators and one for literary history, was just a delight.
Library Under the Treetops was highly praised by city officials of Ljubljana, a project that runs over spring and summer, aiming to bring libraries to green public spaces in Slovenia. The project has been running for 21 years, it’s free, and a great way to encourage reading in the most unusual places.
Another highlight was Center Rog, a fantastic publicly funded renovated space, with nine different production labs set up, to develop creative work on wood, metal, jewellery, textiles, ceramics, green labs, and more. People in the city are welcome to use the spaces by either becoming a member, paying a very small annual fee, or attending specialised workshops. Center Rog is very popular within the student community, who use the public spaces within the building for studying and reading. It is such an inspiring space.
We heard from Slovenian literary festivals like Fabula, for young and emerging writers and translators, which has been running for over 20 years. Also heard about fantastic literary programmes for children and young people like the Reading Badge, which has been running for 65 years, organised by the Slovenian Book Agency, to get children reading over the summer and to encourage them to become lifetime readers. The itn festival was another highlight, an activist festival for people aged 15-29 encouraging poetry, letter and book exchanges between young people and established poets.
What a pleasure it was to be in a city where literature and culture are seen and valued by the city and its citizens; where culture is financially supported to offer exciting and inspiring activities and programmes. We got to explore literature in all its forms, not just books and poetry, but also through journalism, illustration, translation, story-telling. We got to live and see the power of words in Ljubljana, and through our colleagues from the UNESCO Cities of Literature.
We heard so many interesting and inspiring examples that it is impossible to name them all. One thing that stands out everywhere in Ljubljana is that literature and culture are so alive in the city, everywhere we went, you could just see why the conference’s strapline: “We speak literature here” is so meaningful and appropriate. Thank you and well done to everyone at the Ljubljana City of Literature team: you are genuinely inspiring.
We feel truly blessed to have heard from our colleagues around the world, to feel connected and have Nottingham as a highly valued partner of this international network, and to have had our eyes impressively open on what Ljubljana and Slovenia have to offer.
Photos by Matej Pušnik and Crt Piksi.