The Book Night is an international event gathering readers of all generations on the World Book Day on 23 April. It is already the third year that we joined marking the day in Banja Luka.
This year was proclaimed to be Cankar's year, we also remembered 70th anniversay – anniversary of the human rights declaration. What are our ideas of the importance of human rights today and what was Ivan Cankar’s vision?
The evening started by reading the poem of John Lennon 'Imagine'. The poem was translated into Slovenian by Milan Dekleva and available in a picture book published by Amnesty International Slovenia. Lennon sings about the world we would all like to live in. What kind of world did Ivan Cankar write about? How did he warn about injustice, poverty and greed? Our Book Night was similar to many of those in Slovenia dedicated to the question as how up-to-date were Cankar’s ideas. We put Cankar’s poems on the tables, as well as stories, dramas, novels and works on Cankar as well as comic books on Cankar. There gathered elder students who read about Cankar at school, and younger students, who had not heard about Ivan Cankar before. There was an interesting exchange of opinions regarding the meaning of love, hope and strong beliefs.
All participants received a gift – book by Lučka Kajfež Bogataj 'Planet, which does not grow'. In her work the author wanders what was the world like nowadays and what we would need to do to preserve it. Thank you to Public Book Agency of the Republic of Slovenia, which enriched our intergeneration reading by books.
Barbara Hanuš
