Reading and Artist talk with Mascha Dabić and Tanja Šljivar
– The Nomansland cycle-
September 17, 2022, 4:45 p.m.
Photo Cluster – Zigutamve Photography
Zieglergasse 34
1070 Wien
Novel without novelists
Translator Mascha Dabić and playwright Tanja Šljivar will discuss their processes of novel-writing, coming from different backgrounds. Reibungsverluste is Mascha Dabić’s debut novel, written after the author completed the translation of a dozen novels by other authors. National theater – the novel – is Tanja Šljivar’s debut-to-be, after she has worked as an artistic director of the drama department of National theater in Belgrade. Coming from academia and translation and playwriting and theater, both authors have participated actively in the literary field for over a decade. However, the novel is considered to be canonical format, proper, (predominantly male), space for validation of one’s own cultural and literature capital, framing within which one proves herself to be a writer. Dabić wrote a novel about interpreting in the context of psychotherapy, and intends to write second one about life in contemporary academia, and Šljivar wants to write about national theater apparatus, and its relation national state – so they both use their working experiences with language(s), writing and reading, always only approaching but never touching the actual novel. They will read from published and non-published scripts, co-interview and translate each other in this evening of the search of the ever-elusive and all-encompassing format of the novel.
Mascha Dabić was born in Sarajevo. She has studied translation and interpreting studies and received her PhD at the University of Vienna, where she is teaching translation and interpreting in Russian. She translates literature, theatre plays and poetry, mainly from the Balkans region. She published her first novel „Reibungsverluste“ (edition atelier) on the topic of interpreting in psychotherapy.
Tanja Šljivar (1988, Banjaluka, SFR Yugoslavia) She studied dramaturgy at the Faculty of drama arts in Belgrade, and applied theater studies at JLU in Giessen. Her plays have been publicly read and produced in the professional theaters in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Albania, Spain, Poland, Austria, Finland, Slovakia and Germany(DT Berlin, Schauspiel Stuttgart, Theater Dortmund, Theater Paderborn). She also writes film screenplays(The Celts (2021) dir. M. Tomović; From tomorrow on, I will (2019) dir. I. Marković and W. Linfeng; which both premiered at Berlinale Film Festival). She won several awards for her playwriting and has been a guest of writing residencies Austria, Kosovo, Croatia, Czechia, and Hungary. In 2019, she worked as an artistic director of the drama department at the National theater in Belgrade. She teaches playwriting in Belgrade, Banjaluka and Vienna.
Video: Amar Tahirović
Translation: Mirza Purić
The project Tamistad is funded by BMKÖES and Bezirk Neubau.
Vienna, 2022
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