44th International Writers' Meeting in Bled, 16th-20th May 2012

This year's 44th International "Bled Meeting" will be held in Bled, Slovenia from 16th to 20th May 2012.

Slovene PEN centre and the Writers for Peace Commitee of International PEN propose to discuss on the following themes:

1. Transformation – new paths or the decline of Western rational civilization
2. Perennial modernity
3. Sharing with others, a path to peace

The general idea and directions for the round tables can be found here: 1st round table  2nd round table  3rd round table


If you would like to participate to the conference, please fill in the registration form and send it to before the end of March 2012 to: slopen@guest.arnes.si

 
All participants are invited to read at the literary evenings we organize in ten different slovene towns!

 
Provisional programme:

Ljubljana welcomes a new ICORN writer!

Ali Amar is a Moroccan writer and journalist. In 1997 he co-founded the Casablanca weekly ‘Le Journal hebdomadaire’ which he edited until its closure in January 2010. It was the first independent journal banned by the Moroccan regime. 

Ali Amar  holds a degree in economics and a Master in International Journalism of the City University London, UK. He has been frequently persecuted in his home country because of his "engaged pen" and his thorough inquiries about the Moroccan monarchic system.
   
He is author of a best-seller "Mohammed VI, le grand malentendu" (Mohammed VI, the big misunderstanding), published in France in 2009 by Calmann-Lévy. The book was censored in Morocco. His book reveals the reality of the first ten years of the reign of the Moroccan king. His second book "Paris-Marrakech : argent, pouvoir et réseaux" will be published end of January 2012 again at Calmann-Lévy editors. It decrypts the incestuous ties between Moroccan and French elites against the arab revolutions.

Ali Amar currently lives in Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia that recently joined the ICORN network of cities of refuge for persecuted writers. He writes for the information site Slate. Ali, welcome!

First ICORN writer in Ljubljana

We are extreemly glad to greet a first guest writer of the ICORN network in Ljubljana, Zineb El Rhazoui.

Zineb is a journalist, writer and a Human Right's fighter from Morocco. She is a co-founder of the Alternative Movement for Individual Liberties (MALI movement) that became known for the oique-nique organized during the Ramadan in 2009 in order to protest against the article of law that forbids eating in public. Zineb is also member of the Freedom and Democracy Movement better known as the 20th February Movement that strives for a real democracy in Morocco. As a graduate in Sociology of Religion she published several researches on religious minorities and the marabout cult in Journal hebdomadaire, a pionir of the independent press in Morocco, banned by the regime in January 2010. Deprived of her freedom of speech and victim of death menaces and police intimidation, especially because of her actions against the sexual harassment in public places, she applied for and joined the ICORN network in 2011. Today she lives in Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia, which became member of the ICORN network in June 2011. Zineb El Rhazoui was recently published in two book chapters Les 1000 unes de Charlie Hebdo (Ed. Les échappés) and Nouvelles du Maroc to which she sontributed a political short story "Ahmed le businessman" (Coll. Miniatures, Ed. Magellan)