ABOUT FESTIVAL

Bratislava Book Festival exists since 2014.

The V4 scenes in book publishing and literature are very rich, lively and inspiring to each other. Over the last few years there has been a progress in starting collaborations and crossing projects among them. BRaK festival was always aspiring to be the platform for small and middle publishers and to bring opportunities for them and other market key players, artists, graphic designers and illustrators. After 5 years of building a common V4 platform, connections with Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Ukrainian artists, networking and growing dramaturgically as a festival, this project aims at the further development of the festival and the platform, sustaining the quality of the program and addressing the current issues and topics in the Central European region. There is still a gap and many unfulfilled possibilities for cooperation. Countries of our region are often sharing the same problems, society issues that are reflected in the contemporary literature and publishing. Despite geographical proximity and many cooperations and projects, the V4 book markets are still evolving independently, with the lack of professional links between authors, publishers, translators, illustrators and book designers from the V4 countries. BRaK festival started and continues as an event, that has focus on connecting people from the field of professional artistic book publishing, that brings the current topics and people in our region to the forefront.

By organizing Bratislava Book Festival, we want to establish and maintain a common platform for inspiring professionals from wide range of creative fields and passionate, attentive visitors. Each year, we invite up to 40 carefully selected small and middle-sized publishers from the V4 countries and Ukraine to take an active part in both the program for the general public and the off-program for professionals. In the off-program, V4 experts from the fields of book publishing, authorship, design and marketing will share their experience with the participants. In the festival´s program, we focus on international cooperation in creative fields and arts. Due to the lack of direct links between publishing houses in V4 countries, the exchange of literary and visual works of art is quite low, even if the quality of contemporary artists - writers, illustrators, book designers, is one of the most innovative and promising in the international perspective. That is why there are crucial needs to maintain and continually strengthen the direct links between persons involved in the V4 publishing life - publishers, authors, translators and other professionals.