✦ BABELICA ✦ ☘︎ 24-25 SEPTEMBER 2025 ⚑ INTERNATIONAL ONLINE BOOK FAIR OF INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING ✦ BABELICA ✦ ☘︎ 24-25 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2025 ⚑ FERIA INTERNACIONAL Y EN LÍNEA DE LA EDICIÓN INDEPENDIENTE ✦ BABELICA ✦ ☘︎ 24-25 SEPTEMBRE 2025 ⚑ SALON INTERNATIONAL DE L’ÉDITION INDÉPENDANTE EN LIGNE

Literature

Gašper Kralj

Rok trajanja

Shelf Life

Glavni lik nima imena. Ima pa zato nekoliko nenavadno službo in tudi precej neobičajen pristop do nje. Je paliativni oskrbovalec, ki učinkovito, morda še preveč, skrbi za umirajoče. Da bi ublažil tesnobo, ki ga obhaja med delom in še zlasti po njem, piše dnevnik. In da ne bi pozabil. Ko ima delo, ko torej ljudje ob njem umirajo, je videti, da ima stvari bolj ali manj pod nadzorom. Ko ga nima, se zdi, da se mu počasi podira svet. Njegova ustaljena srečanja s pivskimi tovariši in partnerko Katarino postajajo vse krajša. Beži, do onemoglosti bezlja naokoli ali se kje skriva. Vse bolj obupan je, ko išče alibi za svoja zločinska dejanja, ki to morda niso, in vse bolj osamljen, ko inkriminira prijatelje, ki to morda so. V oskrbovalčev preganjavični notranji svet so tako spretno všita vprašanja smrti, samomora, umora, evtanazije, krivde ... To nenavadno delo, ki opisuje podrobnosti smrti in umiranja, hkrati pa se osredotoča na drsenje prvoosebnega pripovedovalca v norost, je, kot je zapisal literarni kritik Matej Bogataj, nadvse artikuliran roman, ki ga po slogu lahko uvrstimo v območje med Kovačičevim romanom Deček in smrt in Robbe-Grilletovim Voyeurjem ter Beckettovimi junaki.

Gašper Kralj (1974, Ljubljana) je diplomiral iz ekonomije na Ekonomski fakulteti Univerze v Ljubljani, doktoriral pa iz socialne antropologije na ISH, Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis, prav tako v Ljubljani. Veliko se je ukvarjal z aktivizmom, tako v Sloveniji (npr. v okviru Avtonomne tovarne Rog in Mreže za stalni obisk v zvezi s postojnskim centrom za tujce) kot v Mehiki in Gvatemali, kjer je opravil tudi terensko raziskavo za doktorsko disertacijo, ki je pozneje izšla kot monografija Izginuli in vrnjeni: pričevanja o uporih v Gvatemali in Latinski Ameriki (Založba /cf., 2008). Zaposlen je bil kot docent za področje socialne antropologije in znanstveni sodelavec Fakultete za humanistične študije Univerze na Primorskem. Potem se je za nekaj let ustalil v Kataloniji, prevajal špansko pišoče avtorje (Javier Cercas, Eduardo Galeano, Ernesto Sábato, Carlos G. Villa), se ukvarjal z raziskovanjem sodobne književnosti in snovanjem romana Rok trajanja (Založba /cf., 2016), s katerim se je uvrstil med nominirance za najboljši literarni prvenec ter med finaliste za nagrado kresnik. Leta 2021 je roman izšel v madžarščini (Használati idő, prev. Emese Rajsli, Forum Újvidék) in 2023 v nemščini v zbirki Litteræ Slovenicæ (prev. Alexander Rath, Društvo slovenskih pisateljev). Za svoj drugi roman Škrbine (Založba /cf., 2020) je leta 2021 prejel Cankarjevo nagrado za najboljše izvirno literarno delo minulega leta, z njim se je uvrstil tudi v ožji izbor za mednarodno nagrado Evropske unije za književnost (EUPL) in znova med kresnikove finaliste; nemški prevod romana je izšel septembra 2023 (Splitter Eines Lebens, prev. Felix Mayer in Jernej Biščak, Mitteldeutscher Verlag). Bil je gost več mednarodnih literarnih srečanj in festivalov (npr. v Budimpešti, Kielu, Vilenici) ter član delegacije slovenskih pisateljev in pisateljic v fokusu frankfurtskega knjižnega sejma oktobra 2023. S soprevajalko Tino Malič je bil dvakrat nominiran za nagrado esAsi, in sicer za prevod romana Vojaki Salamine Javierja Cercasa (Založba /cf., 2013) ter dela Otroci dni Eduarda Galeana (Sanje, 2014).

The protagonist has no name. What he does have, however, is a somewhat unusual job – and a rather uncommon approach to it as well. He is a palliative caregiver, who efficiently – perhaps even too efficiently – looks after the dying. He writes a diary to alleviate the anxiety that he experiences at work and, especially, after work. And to avoid forgetting. When he has work – that is, when people around him are dying – he seems to have things more or less under control. When he has no work, his world seems to be slowly falling apart. His habitual meetings with his drinking buddies and his partner Katarina are becoming increasingly short. He is running away, running around to the point of exhaustion, or hiding somewhere. He is increasingly desperate trying to find an alibi for his criminal acts, which may or may not be that, and getting increasingly lonelier trying to incriminate his friends, who might be precisely that. Questions of death, suicide, homicide, euthanasia and guilt are thus skilfully sutured into the caregiver’s paranoid inner world. As the esteemed literary critic Matej Bogataj wrote, this extraordinary work, which describes the details of death and dying while focusing on the downward slide of its first-person narrator into madness, is a highly articulate novel, whose style places it somewhere between Kovačič’s novel Deček in smrt (A Boy and Death, 1968), Robbe-Grillet’s Voyeur and Beckett’s characters.

Gašper Kralj (1974, Ljubljana) is a freelance award-winning writer and translator. He remembers that in his teens he decided to write a novel. He has been involved in activism, both in Slovenia (e.g., in connection with the Postojna Centre for Foreigners) and in Mexico and Guatemala, where he also conducted field research for his doctoral dissertation in social anthropology. The work was published as a monograph, The Disappeared and the Returned: Testimonials on the Uprisings in Guatemala and Latin America (Založba /cf., 2008) in the Slovene language. He lived in Catalonia for a few years, translating Spanish authors (Javier Cercas, Eduardo Galeano, Ernesto Sábato, Carlos G. Villa), researching literary fiction and writing the novel Rok trajanja (2016; Shelf Life), published by Založba /cf. in 2016, which was among the finalists for Best Fiction Debut and a finalist for the Kresnik Award for Best Novel; a Hungarian translation (by Emese Rajsli) came out in 2021, and a German translation (by Alexander Rath) in 2023. For his second novel, Stubs, he won the Cankar Prize for the best fiction book of the year, and was shortlisted for the European Union Prize for Literature (EUPL) and the Kresnik Award for the best Slovenian novel in 2021. Stubs was also published in German (translation by Felix Mayer and Jernej Biščak) in 2023. Kralj has been a guest at international literary meetings and festivals in Budapest, Kiel, Vilenica and Frankfurt. With his co-translator Tina Malič, he has been nominated twice for the esAsi Prize, for the translation of Javier Cercas’s Soldiers of Salamis (Založba /cf., 2013) and Eduardo Galeano’s Children of the Days* (Sanje, 2014).

Made with ❤ by PCFH Studio & Thibault Daumain