November 24, 2009

The film "Masa", written and directed by Sinisa Kovacevic, won the first prize at the festival in India. American poet of  Serbian origin Charles Simic is one of the laureates of this year’s Italian literary prize "Premio Napoli. The novel "Hamam Balkania" by Serbian writer Vladislav Bajac is very popular with readers and has been translated into several languages. More in our regular feature CULTURAL CHRONICLE  prepared by Milena Gluvacevic.

The film "Masa", written and directed by Sinisa Kovacevic in the production of the company "Ave Serbia" and Radio Television of Serbia won the first prize at the festival in Indian city of Chennai. The movie competed with films from the U.S., Germany, Austria, France, Israel, Japan, Hungary, China, Lithuania and other states. The prize will be awarded to the producer and authors of the film at the official ceremony in Berlin in February, during the film festival in Berlin. The film "Masa" focuses on a young girl who was forced to flee Croatia with her parents and come to Belgrade where she met with drugs and "tough guys". Speaking of this movie, Sinisa Kovacevic said that artists, in fact, describe their time, adding that "Masa" will be a better testimony of our hard times when we lived a refugee blues, lost home towns and had difficulties adjusting to new environment, than any documentary.

Famous American poet of Serbian origin and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for literature, Charles Simic is one of the laureates of this year’s Italian literary prize "Premio Napoli“. Simic won the award for his latest book of poetry in Italian entitled "Club Midnight", published last fall by the publisher "Adelfi", which will shortly publish a new work by Simic - "The Monster Loves His Labyrinth." In addition, Simic’s Serbian publisher, "Arhipelag", published his book of essays "The Alchemy of Antiquities“, translated by Vesna Roganovic, in which he speaks, through the story about the art of Joseph Cornell , about a discovery of the insufficiently known side of New York, but also of his memories of Belgrade. Simic will receive the award in Naples.

These days, the award-winning novel "Hamam Balkania" by Vladislav Bajac has been published in Bulgaria, Croatia and Turkey and is also announced in Austria and Norway, while negotiations are underway with the publishing houses in France, Italy, Sweden and Slovenia. This book was awarded the International Literary Prize "Balkanika", as well as prizes "Isidora Sekulic" and "Hit Liber”. In Bulgaria, it was published by the publishing house "Ciela" and translated by Sevda Dimitrova. The Croatian edition of "Hamam Balkania" was published by the Zagreb house "Fraktura" that presented it at the Book Fair Interliber. In addition, the contract has been just signed for the Turkish edition with the publishing house "Ast" from Ankara. Negotiations are underway with three Greek publishers on the publication of the Greek edition. Given that the novel won the "Balkanika" Prize, it may be expected that it is soon to be published in Macedonian, Romanian and Albanian. It is interesting to note that the novel "Hamam Balkania" had four editions in Serbia in a year and a half.