Fabula Festival of World Literatures

Slovenia's main book festival produced by the Beletrina Publishing House in collaboration with Cankarjev dom, the Literatures of the World Festival – Fabula brings together world-class authors. Running since 2003, the festival has hosted some of the biggest names in literature, including Herta Müller, Irvine Welsh, Jonathan Franzen, Hanif Kureishi, David Grossman, Janice Galloway, Richard Flanagan, Taiye Selasi, Tatyana Tolstaya, Eric Vuillard, Rachel Cusk, Deborah Levy, Vladimir Sorokin, Bernhard Schlink, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Bernardine Evaristo, and Maria Stepanova. The concept of the festival, which has evolved over the years, is today based on well-considered curatorship. Each year, the festival invites five writers, both established and up-and-coming literary names. The Fabula Hub devotes attention to promising, emerging authors, and Fabula Selection promotes Slovenia’s finest prose works.

In 2025, the festival adopts the slogan Distorted Reality, which reflects the complexities of our world and provides a deep insight into the ways in which literature counters and shifts our perception of everyday life. The slogan is not merely an aesthetic choice; it raises questions about how our perception of the world is shaped through layers of linguistic, cultural and political frameworks that both define and limit it. Literature becomes a tool for exploring these layers, allowing us to reflect on modes of reality: rather than being unequivocal, reality is subjective and manipulated, constantly in flux. The main programme is dedicated to authors whose works stretch and blend the limits of reality and irrationality, the individual and the collective, the concrete and the abstract, in an extremely precise and subtle way. At a time when post-reality is becoming synonymous with political manipulation, when historical revisionism is merging with distorted perceptions of the past, Fabula’s literary and humanistic events and the rich accompanying programme focus on the questions of how individuals confront a distorted reality.

This year's main literary guests are internationally renowned authors: the Japanese writer Yoko Tawada, the British-German author, publicist and activist Sharon Dodua Otoo, the Mexican writer Guadalupe Nettel and the Croatian author and screenwriter Dora Šustić, the promising Italian-Pakistani author Saif ur Rehman Raja (Fabula Hub) the first author in Fabula's residency programme. The selected guests reflect the festival's commitment to hosting renowned literary names and encouraging promising young voices, with a particular emphasis on gender, geographical and stylistic balance, allowing Fabula to explore the selected themes in depth.

The Festival’s programme, focused on hosting top international writers, translating their works into Slovenian and establishing live contact between international literature and Slovenian audiences, also raises topical socio-critical issues and addresses contemporary challenges. In addition to the literary programme, the festival also features a theoretical focus addressing a relevant social issue every year. So far, the theoretical focus has hosted a variety of distinguished guests, including Slavoj Žižek, Terry Eagleton, Chantal Mouffe, Eva Illouz, Jean-Claude Milner, Patrick Boucheron, Umberto Galimberti and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. This year’s guests include US political scientist Francis Fukuyama, who will discuss identity and democracy in Ljubljana, and Israeli philosopher Noam Yuran, who will discuss financial and cultural aspects of contemporary challenges in Ljubljana and Maribor, both talks relating to the festival's slogan, Distorted Reality.

Fabula 2025 guests:
Francis Fukuyama (1952) US political scientist, writer and professor at Stanford University, received his PhD from Harvard University. He is known for his influential thesis on the end of history, which has impacted global debates on politics, identity and the future of democratic systems. Among his most important works are Liberalism and Its Discontents, Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution and Trust: Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity, Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment. His influence goes beyond academia, as his analyses form an important part of the wider discourse on the future of political and social systems.

Guadalupe Nettel (1973) is a Mexican writer, author of award-winning novels and collections of short stories translated into more than twenty languages, including The Body Where I was Born, After the Winter, and Still Born which was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2023. Her work addresses themes of physical and psychological otherness, anomaly and exclusion, presented as important aspects of the human experience.

Sharon Dodua Otoo (1972) is a British writer, journalist and activist whose work explores complex issues of identity, race, gender and historical memory. She is the 2016 winner of the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize – one of the most prestigious awards for German language literature – for her short story Herr Gröttrup setzt sich hin. Translated into several languages, her debut novel, Adas Raum (Ada's Room, 2021), has captivated worldwide readers and critics alike with its innovative structure and universal themes.

Dora Šustić (1991, Rijeka) is a writer, screenwriter and filmmaker. She graduated in political science from the University of Ljubljana and received her Master's degree in screenwriting from FAMU Academy in Prague. She has established herself as one of the most promising voices in Croatian literature. Her debut novel Psi (Dogs, 2022), awarded the Drago Gervais Prize for Best Manuscript, has been nominated for several prestigious literary awards.

Saif ur Rehman Raja (1994) was born in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, and moved to Italy aged 11, first to Belluno and later to Bologna. He graduated in pedagogy and was awarded the UAAR prize for his thesis. Currently a PhD student at the University of Siena, his research on Pakistani families in Italy was conducted in conjunction with the University of Bologna. His academic research mainly concerns multiculturalism and critical race theory.

Yoko Tawada (1960) is an accomplished Japanese-German writer, one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary world literature. In discussing her work, the author will address some of the main issues facing our world – the issues of language loss, migration, foreignness and the search for a sense of belonging. Yoko Tawada's work, especially after the 2011 tsunami earthquake and nuclear disaster in Japan, explores the loss of homeland, language and security, painting dystopian landscapes to echo the uncertainties of today's world.

Noam Yuran is a Senior Lecturer in Science, Technology and Society Graduate Program at Bar-Ilan University Israeli philosopher and one of the leading contemporary theoreticians of capitalism. Noam's teaching and research turn to the history of economic thought as a way to explore alternative conceptualizations of the relations between economy and society. Yuran studies how capitalist logic shapes our social norms, intimate relationships and consumer subjectivity. In What Money Wants: An Economy of Desire (Stanford University Press, 2014), Noam Yuran argues that money is not merely a technical tool in the administration of goods, but a vehicle for complex human desires. His works help us understand how deeply capitalism has penetrated the most intimate recesses of humankind, profoundly reshaping our values and attitudes.

The Fabula Festival also features an extremely diversified accompanying programme aimed at reading audiences of all ages and ranging from children’s and youth programmes (Young Fabula), interactive literary installations in public spaces (Fabula Polis), collaborations with Slovenian publishers and booksellers (Fabula’s Selection), genre-blending of literature, theatre and other genres (Fabula Beyond Literature) to projects establishing the festival as an incubator of new literary ideas and future literary orientations (Fabula Hub).
With a special international focus, the newly established Fabula x CELA programme maintains contact with young writers and translators, raising their European and global visibility.

Launched in 2025, Beletrina’s new collection, Literatures of the World, includes translations of other contemporary literary works alongside books by Fabula's authors.

Literatures of the World – Fabula Festival is a member of the European Festival Association – EFA