The 17th edition of the Festival of the European Short Story (FEKP) will start this Sunday, with events in the cities of Zagreb, Samobor, and Rijeka featuring renowned Croatian and international authors celebrating the form and craft of short story writing.

This year’s edition, themed around the concept of heritage, will kick off on Sunday with a talk by Nigerian poet and novelist Ben Okri, the winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Booker Prize whose short stories have been translated into some 20 languages.

Other internationally renowned authors to hold talks and take part in panel discussions over the six-day festival will include Welsh author Carys Davies, the winner of the prestigious Frank O’Connor short story award, and Spanish author Ignacio Martínez de Pisón, known for working on films with renowned Spanish directors, such as Fernando Trueba.

Ukrainian novelist Andrey Kurkov, one of the greatest names in contemporary Russian-language literature, will present his new novel on Tuesday, May 29, which will be followed by a ceremony announcing winners of this year’s short story competition organised by the festival.

Croatian audiences will also have a chance to meet the Belgian-Moroccan author Rachida Lamrabet, known as an advocate of the right for Muslim women to wear a burqa, and whose novels deal with the clash of cultures experience by Moroccan immigrants in Belgium.

Other guests include Italian author Flavio Soriga, Northern Ireland’s Jan Carson, Costa Rican author Carlos Fonseca, and award-winning writers Inga Zolude from Latvia, Suzana Tratnik from Slovenia, Vladimir Arsenijevic from Serbia.

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