On June 27, in the courtyard of the Goncharov House, a meeting was held with Andrej Hočevar from Ljubljana, poet, writer, editor of the famous magazine LUD Literatura. Khochevar became the first guest of the international writers' residence in Ulyanovsk, created for authors and translators from UNESCO literary cities. The result of the writers' stay in Ulyanovsk should be a text dedicated to the city.

After a month of work in the residence, the author of six books of poems and one collection of stories, Andrei Khochevar, met with the residents of Ulyanovsk, read his poems, answered questions from poet and journalist Sergei Gogin and guests. Ulyanovsk residents were able to hear not only the sound of Slovenian poetry, but also the Russian translation of poems made by the famous translator Zhanna Perkovskaya.

As Hočevar said, the writer's residence in Ulyanovsk helped him focus on the main thing - writing texts, thanks to which he created more in this month than in the entire previous year.

In Ulyanovsk, the author worked on a reportage about the literary life of the city, and also looked for the relationship between the presence of the middle class and the literary specifics of the place. In particular, the author tried to find out whether the middle class can be identified with the intelligentsia. The guest from Slovenia is also interested in the social circumstances of literature, which, in his opinion, have not been sufficiently studied. Khocevar will publish the report in the Slovenian magazine LUD Literatura, and later it will be translated into Russian.

The author is very critical of his own texts, especially early ones. Khochevar noted that at first his books were written in a complex language, then he began to write more clearly, but soon returned to more intricate texts, not focusing on his own "I".

While in Ulyanovsk, the writer met with local authors and took part in several literary events, including: the Pushkin in the City of U literary festival, the Big Literary Collection, and the Literary Tram. This is the third time the author comes to Russia; in previous years he took part in literary events in Moscow and Yakutia.

Recall that the selection for the first international residence in Ulyanovsk started in the spring of 2019. Applications were accepted from writers and translators from UNESCO literary cities. As a result of the selection, two authors were invited to the city - Andrej Hočevar from Slovenia and David Howard from New Zealand. The guest from Dunedin will arrive in Ulyanovsk in September.

In turn, Ulyanovsk authors can become participants in similar residencies in other UNESCO cities of literature, which regularly announce the acceptance of applications. Now local writers receive information about new competitions and residencies from the directorate of the Ulyanovsk - UNESCO City of Literature program through a special mailing list from Writer's Info Point. To subscribe to it, just send an email to infopoint.ulskcityofliterature@gmail.com

For reference

In 2015, Ulyanovsk received the status of the Most Reading Region of Russia, and also entered the UNESCO Creative Cities Network in the Literature direction. Today, the UNESCO Creative Cities Network unites 180 cities from 72 countries of the world.