Sibila Petlevski is the author of 23 books in different genres of fiction, non-fiction, drama and poetry.
Some of her sonnets originally written in English appeared in Douglas Messerli's anthology of world authors 50: A Celebration of Sun & Moon Classics (Sun & Moon Press, Los Angeles, 1995). Her poetry, drama and extracts from her fiction have been translated into numerous languages.
She won the "Vladimir Nazor" Award for literature for 1993. She also won the literary award for the best national novel published in 2009, tportal award, for her novel "Vrijeme laži".
"Correspondence" is an excerpt from "A State of Twilight", the third novel in the "Taboo" trilogy.
How things return to their starting point! How persistent, how malicious these ghosts of the past are! - Viktor wrote. He dated it: Lublin, November 22nd 1916, 2:40 AM. He was in a state of fatigue; weary in spirit and exhausted from work. He sat at a desk in an office of the Psychiatry ward of Lublin army headquarters. For a while now - since that first operation he had to perform under fire, in the improvised conditions of a field hospital, up to the moment when he could start practicing his specialty in Lublin - he had a feeling that he was haunted by the faces from those years which he lived through - in his own words - "foolishly, arrogantly wasteful of time, as if he would live forever". The train brought fresh cannon fodder from the eastern front. Delivery - that's what Viktor called the newly arrived wounded. Whenever a larger "delivery" arrived, he would get involved. He considered it his duty; "roll up your sleeves, get out of the privileged position of the head of the psychiatric ward, and do the butcher's job as one should". There weren't many educated physicians among the psychoanalysts who gathered around Freud. He was in many ways an exception.
I'm tired, tired, tired, like a heavy saddle is covering me. My eyelids are closing, and there is no merciful sleep. I haven't slept properly in weeks - Viktor wrote down. I thought the twilight period in which I still believed myself to be an artist was over. In a way, it is. Nothing can ever be the same again. But the curse returns. It was and remained. It's following me. When he removed the white coat stained with blood, Viktor neatly buttoned it up and put it on the hanger. He didn't have it washed, and now the "filthy butcher's apron" had pride of place on a silly wooden hanger for the upper part of the uniform, which in peacetime would surely hold the pressed jacket of his dinner suit. He placed the hanger opposite the desk, in the position where a patient would usually find himself after opening the door and stepping into his office. First he began to laugh, and then he forgot about that "little play" he put on for his own amusement, and started writing. Just before four o'clock in the morning, when his eyes had gone completely blurry from fatigue, he looked up, and his doctor's coat still stood there like a headless man - he himself. At four AM, seeing an empty doctor's uniform, the discarded armor of his own doctor persona, wasn't the least bit pleasant.
Is there any content in it... this role of humanist and physician? - he wondered.
On the coat, the blood had once more, with a bureaucrat's dilligence, written the message of another senseless death, and at the sight of these blood stains, Viktor couldn't escape the impression - for quite some time he couldn't escape the horrific impression - that the canvas of his doctor's coat was a surface used by some utterly cunning, unidentified force - God or the Devil, whichever - to send him messages.
Those aren't stains. No, those aren't lines either. It's writing.
Finally, he could make out "a hand"; he thought that every other, minimally skillful eye could differentiate between a random form - a bloody arabesque of chance - and a deliberate intervention into randomness. It was writing. Those were signs. perhaps even letters. There wasn't much chance that he could be mistaken on this issue, because Viktor was also an artist. As much as he wanted to forget this innate passion - he was, among all other things, an artist - and he was a better draughtsman than many of those who entered the Academy.
Endowed in all things, he proved with every life decision that overabundance can become a serious problem for a "serious man in a serious society". For some time now he copied the letters of the blood alphabet into his Diary, pretending he was merely doodling. He could never admit it to anyone. He could barely admit to himself what he was doing, in the small hours of the morning, after work; this "infernal calligraphy" and an incidental search for the key to this coded writing. Precisely - "incidental search" - because how could one believe a system could really exist where arbitrariness, absurdity, complete chaos of causes and effects were shown?
Even this war, which put the "blood ink" into mass production, was and remained only a set of god-awfully banal reasons, dominated by the need for gain. Only Gain could give an alleged sense to the senselessness of war, and sell an infernal lie at the price of thousands and thousands of human lives. Only Gain could convince each of them personally - the smart and the stupid, the ignorant and the educated who think they know how to think - that at the end of their life journey they did not die in vain, but as the happy possessors of a great truth. I'd love to know: whose Gain?... Because whoever promised them immortality, they could only achieve it beyond consciousness, in the realm of collective sepulchral stupidity that makes sons continue precisely where their fathers left off. Am I perhaps engaged in correspondence with a force of cerebral inertia stronger than death itself? The blood letters - from whom did they come from, and for whom are they intended?
Kritična masa raspisuje novi natječaj književne nagrade "Kritična masa" za mlade autorice i autore (do 35 godina).
Ovo je osmo izdanje nagrade koja pruža pregled mlađe prozne scene (širi i uži izbor) i promovira nova prozna imena.
Prva nagrada iznosi 700 eura (bruto iznos) i dodjeljuje se uz plaketu.
U konkurenciju ulaze svi dosad neobjavljeni oblici proznih priloga (kratka priča, odlomci iz većih formi, prozne crtice). Osim prozne fikcije, prihvatljivi su i dokumentarni prozni tekstovi te dnevničke forme koji posjeduju književnu dimenziju.
Prethodnih su godina nagradu dobili Ana Rajković, Jelena Zlatar, Marina Gudelj, Mira Petrović, Filip Rutić, Eva Simčić i Ana Predan.
Krajnji rok za slanje prijava je 10.12.2024.
Pravo sudjelovanja imaju autorice i autori rođeni od 10.12.1989. nadalje.
NAGRADA "KRITIČNA MASA" - UŽI IZBOR
Robert Aralica (Šibenik, 1997.) studij hrvatskoga i engleskoga jezika i književnosti završava 2020. godine na Filozofskom fakultetu Sveučilišta u Splitu. U slobodno vrijeme bavi se pisanjem proze i produkcijom elektroničke glazbe. Svoje literarne radove objavljivao je u studentskim časopisima Humanist i The Split Mind. 2022. kriminalističkom pričom Natkrovlje od čempresa osvojio je prvo mjesto na natječaju Kristalna pepeljara. Trenutno je zaposlen u II. i V. splitskoj gimnaziji kao nastavnik hrvatskoga jezika.
NAGRADA "KRITIČNA MASA" - UŽI IZBOR
Iva Esterajher (Ljubljana, 1988.) živi i radi u Zagrebu. Diplomirala je politologiju na Fakultetu političkih znanosti. Aktivno se bavi likovnom umjetnošću (crtanje, slikarstvo, grafički rad), fotografijom, kreativnim pisanjem te pisanjem filmskih i glazbenih recenzija. Kratke priče i poezija objavljene su joj u književnim časopisima i na portalima (Urbani vračevi, UBIQ, Astronaut, Strane, NEMA, Afirmator) te je sudjelovala na nekoliko književnih natječaja i manifestacija (Večernji list, Arteist, FantaSTikon, Pamela festival i dr.).
NAGRADA "KRITIČNA MASA" - UŽI IZBOR
Nikola Pavičić (Zagreb, 2004.) živi u Svetoj Nedelji. Pohađa Pravni fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu. Piše, napose poeziju i lirsku prozu, te sa svojim tekstovima nastoji sudjelovati u literarnim natječajima i časopisima. U slobodno vrijeme voli proučavati književnost i povijest te učiti jezike.
NAGRADA "KRITIČNA MASA" - UŽI IZBOR
Luca Kozina (Split, 1990.) piše prozu, poeziju i književne kritike. Dobitnica je nagrade Prozak u sklopu koje je 2021. objavljena zbirka priča Važno je imati hobi. Zbirka je ušla u uži izbor nagrade Edo Budiša. Dobitnica je nagrada za poeziju Mak Dizdar i Pisanje na Tanane izdavačke kuće Kontrast u kategoriji Priroda. Dobitnica je nagrade Ulaznica za poeziju. Od 2016. piše književne kritike za portal Booksu. Članica je splitske udruge Pisci za pisce. Zajedno s Ružicom Gašperov i Sarom Kopeczky autorica je knjige Priručnica - od ideje do priče (2023).
NAGRADA "KRITIČNA MASA" - UŽI IZBOR
Ana Predan (Pula, 1996.) odrasla je u Vodnjanu. U šestoj godini počinje svirati violinu, a u šesnaestoj pjevati jazz. Po završetku srednje škole seli u Ljubljanu gdje studira međunarodne odnose, a onda u Trst gdje upisuje jazz pjevanje pri tršćanskom konzervatoriju na kojem je diplomirala ove godine s temom radništva u glazbi Istre. U toku studiranja putuje u Estoniju gdje godinu dana provodi na Erasmus+ studentskoj razmjeni. Tada sudjeluje na mnogo vrijednih i važnih projekata, i radi s umjetnicima i prijateljima, a počinje se i odmicati od jazza, te otkriva eksperimentalnu i improviziranu glazbu, te se počinje zanimati za druge, vizualne medije, osobito film. Trenutno živi u Puli, gdje piše za Radio Rojc i predaje violinu u Glazbenoj školi Ivana Matetića-Ronjgova. Piše oduvijek i često, najčešće sebi.
NAGRADA "SEDMICA & KRITIČNA MASA" - UŽI IZBOR
Eva Simčić (Rijeka, 1990.) do sada je kraću prozu objavljivala na stranicama Gradske knjižnice Rijeka, na blogu i Facebook stranici Čovjek-Časopis, Reviji Razpotja i na stranici Air Beletrina. Trenutno živi i radi u Oslu gdje dovršava doktorat iz postjugoslavenske književnosti i kulture.
Jyrki K. Ihalainen (r. 1957.) finski je pisac, prevoditelj i izdavač. Od 1978. Ihalainen je objavio 34 zbirke poezije na finskom, engleskom i danskom. Njegova prva zbirka poezije, Flesh & Night , objavljena u Christianiji 1978. JK Ihalainen posjeduje izdavačku kuću Palladium Kirjat u sklopu koje sam izrađuje svoje knjige od početka do kraja: piše ih ili prevodi, djeluje kao njihov izdavač, tiska ih u svojoj tiskari u Siuronkoskom i vodi njihovu prodaju. Ihalainenova djela ilustrirali su poznati umjetnici, uključujući Williama S. Burroughsa , Outi Heiskanen i Maritu Liulia. Ihalainen je dobio niz uglednih nagrada u Finskoj: Nuoren Voiman Liito 1995., nagradu za umjetnost Pirkanmaa 1998., nagradu Eino Leino 2010. Od 2003. Ihalainen je umjetnički direktor Anniki Poetry Festivala koji se odvija u Tampereu. Ihalainenova najnovija zbirka pjesama je "Sytykkei", objavljena 2016 . Bavi se i izvođenjem poezije; bio je, između ostalog, gost na albumu Loppuasukas finskog rap izvođača Asa 2008., gdje izvodi tekst pjesme "Alkuasukas".
Maja Marchig (Rijeka, 1973.) živi u Zagrebu gdje radi kao računovođa. Piše poeziju i kratke priče. Polaznica je više radionica pisanja poezije i proze. Objavljivala je u brojnim časopisima u regiji kao što su Strane, Fantom slobode, Tema i Poezija. Članica literarne organizacije ZLO. Nekoliko puta je bila finalistica hrvatskih i regionalnih književnih natječaja (Natječaja za kratku priču FEKPa 2015., Međunarodnog konkursa za kratku priču “Vranac” 2015., Nagrade Post scriptum za književnost na društvenim mrežama 2019. i 2020. godine). Njena kratka priča “Terapija” osvojila je drugu nagradu na natječaju KROMOmetaFORA2020. 2022. godine objavila je zbirku pjesama Spavajte u čarapama uz potporu za poticanje književnog stvaralaštva Ministarstva kulture i medija Republike Hrvatske u biblioteci Poezija Hrvatskog društva pisaca.
Juha Kulmala (r. 1962.) finski je pjesnik koji živi u Turkuu. Njegova zbirka "Pompeijin iloiset päivät" ("Veseli dani Pompeja") dobila je nacionalnu pjesničku nagradu Dancing Bear 2014. koju dodjeljuje finska javna radiotelevizija Yle. A njegova zbirka "Emme ole dodo" ("Mi nismo Dodo") nagrađena je nacionalnom nagradom Jarkko Laine 2011. Kulmalina poezija ukorijenjena je u beatu, nadrealizmu i ekspresionizmu i često se koristi uvrnutim, lakonskim humorom. Pjesme su mu prevedene na više jezika. Nastupao je na mnogim festivalima i klubovima, npr. u Engleskoj, Njemačkoj, Rusiji, Estoniji i Turskoj, ponekad s glazbenicima ili drugim umjetnicima. Također je predsjednik festivala Tjedan poezije u Turkuu.