Jakuta Alikavazovic, one of the most original contemporary French writers of Bosnian-Montenegrin roots and a distinctive voice of contemporary European prose, is coming to Celje. Her writing ranges between lyricism, intimate testimony and precise architecture of language. She was awarded the Goncourt for her literary debut and the Médicis Prize for essay. In her works, she explores memory, emigration, family ties and the invisible forces that shape our inner geography.

The focus of the evening will be her latest novel The Great Never Again (Never again, 2025), a lyrical and slightly baroque tale about a mother and daughter, about what is conveyed through silences, silences and family unspoken things. The novel develops as a delicate network of memories, echoes and fragments, in which a personal story constantly touches the collective history of emigration from the former Yugoslavia. French critics have described the work as a novel of "infinite grace", woven from hidden folds of memory and silent emotional charge.

Alikavazovic constructs the novel as a subtle dialogue between closeness and distance, between the daughter's need for understanding and the mother's persistent elusiveness. The Great Never Again can be read as a portrait of a strong and mysterious woman, as a reflection on the legacy of emigration, or as a literary exploration of how memory is transmitted not only through words but also through silence. The work is not a linear narrative, but a thoughtfully constructed literary composition that invites the reader to read slowly, attentively.

The evening will be dedicated to a conversation about memory, intimacy, and writing about what often remains unsaid, as well as the author's unique way of constructing language, in which lyricism merges with precise narrative structure. We will read excerpts from the French original with a parallel Slovenian translation, and reflect on how literature can preserve, transform, and re-enact the legacy of silence.

The discussion will be moderated by Blažka Müller, and the reading interpretation of the excerpts will be prepared by Mojka Končar. The event will be held in English with simultaneous interpretation into Slovenian.

You are invited to an evening that will open up the silent spaces of memory through literature and show how new forms of closeness and understanding are born between silence and words.