The final in a series of literary evenings held at the MMC Kibla this December will host Mojca Kumerdej, who thereby concludes „her own 2017“ with a visit to Maribor. Kumerdej is currently working on a new novel, following the success of her work The Harvest of Chronos (Kronosova žetev), for which she received the 2017 Prešeren Fund Award, the highest state recognition for artistic achievement, in February this year. In April the same work also won her the 'kritiško sito' (critics' sieve) award. In June the novel was among the five selected nominees for Kersnik, a literary award for the best novel in Slovene of the previous year. The discussion will be moderated by Tonja Jelen.

Mojca Kumerdej (1964, Ljubljana) is a Slovene writer, philosopher and critic. She works as the cultural chronicler for the daily newspaper Delo, writing on contemporary dance, theater, performance, film, and literature. Kumerdej graduated in philosophy and sociology of culture from the University of Ljubljana.

Her debut novel Krst nad Triglavom (The Baptism Over Mount Triglav) is a parody and a witty and ironical revision of one of Slovene literary history's most important works, the epic poem Krst pri Savici (The Baptism at the Savica) by France Prešeren. Her next two published books, Fragma (2003) and Dark Matter (Temna snov, 2011), are collections of short stories, which hold a special position in contemporary Slovene prose due to their thematic specificity and literary treatment. Her individual shorts stories, featured in domestic and foreign collections and anthologies, appear in thirteen world languages. Her story Pod gladino (Under the Surface) received the Crystal Vilenica Prize at the international literary festival Vilenica in 2006. The Serbian translation of Dark Matter (Tamna materija, Geopoetika; 2015) received the Kočić’s Pen Award in 2016.

Works:
- Krst nad Triglavom (The Baptism Over Mount Triglav), Študentska založba, Ljubljana, 2001
- Fragma, Študentska založba, Ljubljana, 2003
- Temna snov (Dark Matter), Študentska založba, Ljubljana, 2011
- Kronosova žetev (The Harvest of Chronos), Beletrina, Ljubljana, 2016

Production: X-OP Association for Contemporary Art
Co-production: Association for Culture and Education KIBLA, Association for Arts and Audio-Visual Production CODE BLUE
Support: Municipality of Maribor, Ministry of Culture, Employment Service of Slovenia, Ministry of Labor, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities