Under the Skin

Mojca Kumerdej and Miha Mazzini are considered two of the best authors of short stories in Slovenia, where poetry and short prose are considered the finest forms of literature. Mojca Kumerdej has published three important, award-winning volumes of short prose, a selection of which was published by Wallstein (2023) under the title Unter die Oberfläche, translated by Liza Linde and Erwin Köstler. She relentlessly exposes the deepest, darkest thoughts of her characters. She dissects the human psyche without any judgement. Wallstein Verlag publishing house has already published her extensive novel Kronos erntet, which was translated by Erwin Köstler (2019). – Miha Mazzini has also published an extensive novel Du existierst nicht (Edition Converso, 2021), translated into German by Ann Catrin Bolton. The feature film with the same title, based on the novel, has won several awards. A small selection of Mazzini's short prose will be published by Axel Dielmann Verlag in 2023. Miha Mazzini is also a researcher and a popular columnist. The speakers will discuss the special nature of the short story as a literary form, Slovenian mentality and the pathology of the current (Slovenian and global) reality with the host Thorsten Ahrend, director of the literary centre Literaturhaus Leipzig and head of the literary programme at Wallstein Verlag publishing house. The conversation will be simultaneously interpreted into German.