The PEN Centre of Bosnia & Herzegovina
Member organization
The PEN Centre of Bosnia & Herzegovina works on gathering authors, editors, translators, publishers, publicists, essayists, literary critics and historians, together with other intellectuals, thus creating a cultural scene where valuable opinions on contemporary aims of not only literature but the society itself can be given notice.
The PEN Centre of Bosnia & Herzegovina was founded in the very first year of the war in Bosnia, on October 31st 1992. Multi-ethnic Bosnia & Herzegovina, until then a part of the wider state, was not in the position to form an independent Centre according to the rules of the International PEN Organization. PEN Centre of Bosnia & Herzegovina has, from its beginning, striven to fight against all forms of discrimination, national and other forms of conflict.
The PEN Centre of Bosnia & Herzegovina works on gathering authors, editors, translators, publishers, publicists, essayists, literary critics and historians, together with other intellectuals, thus creating a cultural scene where valuable opinions on contemporary aims of not only literature but the society itself can be given notice. This forms an intellectual surrounding that nourishes culture of dialogue, tolerance and calls for a unique dynamic of organizing public forums, debates, round tables and similar manifestations, together with publishing books, bulletins, brochures and other publications.
Since 2013, PEN Centre of Bosnia & Herzegovina has been a part of the Traduki network, and has thanks to them and other partners (S. Fischer Stiftung (De), Publishing House Goga (Slo), Goten Publishing (MK), Krokodil (Srb), Udruga Kurs (Cro), Poeteka (Alb) and Qendra Multimedia (Kos) collaborated on a project called “Reading Balkans: Broders vs. Frontiers”, that focuses on refugee writers, and residential exchanges.
Our association has proven itself through the years as a community that gathers intellectuals in not only promoting literature, but also emphasizing the social role and influence of culture in a post-war society, taking action and dealing with post-war trauma. The members of our Centre fought for the world to know the facts about the aggression we were the victims of. No matter for hard conditions of survival under siege, writers proceeded writing as well as organizing a lot of manifestations of tolerance and culture and numerous forms of spiritual and cultural resistance.