Disquiets

Disquiets, spreading across the world in widening circles, stand at the heart of the 31st Book Fair(y) in Istria. Through literature, non-fiction, essays, visual arts, and film, the guests of this year’s Pula Festival of Books and Authors will reflect across nearly one hundred fair programs on the disquiets of the moment - both intimate and global. The Fair will cast new light on historical moments marked by disquiets, while its stages will open, among other things, to literary works in which today’s restless age confronts the echoes of the past.

Beyond literary gatherings that welcome authors from around the world, disquiets will also be the topic of round-table discussions, while this year’s exhibition and film, both conceived through creative disquiets, will bear witness to more than three decades of the Book Fair(y) in Istria. Indeed, once again this year, the central source of all festival events will be - artistic disquiets.

In addition to literary meetings, attended by authors from all over the world, disquiets will also be explored at round-table discussions. Alongside creative disquiet, this year’s exhibition and film will bear witness to more than three decades of the Book Fair(y) in Istria. Once again, the driving force behind all festival events will be — artistic disquiets.
Since its beginnings, the Book Fair(y) in Istria has viewed literature and art as a way of looking deeply into the reality we inhabit. Through its thematic frameworks, it has sought to reveal the world as it is and as it might yet become. Yet on the threshold of the 31st Book Fair(y) in Istria, the world of 2025 has not become a better place. Horrified, gripped by mounting unease, anxiety, and existential fear, it feels as though we once again find ourselves on the bridge against Munch’s blood-red sky, where the screaming figure of The Scream cries out ever louder. Is it loud enough this time? Who even hears it? Will the humanity once again march and walk past it, deaf to the images of evil?

The meanders of disquiets are spreading. Armed conflicts in Eastern Europe, the flames of war in the Middle East, student protests in neighbouring countries, street violence, mass deportations across the American continent, a new redistribution of global power; totalitarian ideologies gaining ground, growing migration, social tension and inequality, scarcity, hunger, unstoppable ecological threats, epidemics, climate change… Disturbance has become the condition of entire generations of young people living their dissonance within a world of disquiets. Vulnerability is rising. Social values are strongly shaken, the old ones erased. Artistic freedom is under assault; censors rattle their weapons; the culture of conformity confronts the culture of diversity… New weapons, old images. All this has flowed into the theme of this year’s Fair. And our inner life is but a mirror of the world’s disquiets. Unease rises from the turbulence around us. Everything teeters on the edge. Has peace become the new utopia?