Vienna Calling

Olja Alvir was born in Yugoslavia and grew up in Vienna, where she works as a writer, translator, and literary scholar. She is the author of the German-language novel Kein Meer (Zaglossus, 2016) and the trilingual poetry collection Spielfeld/Špilfeld/Playground (Kollektiv, 2022), with her poem “Pomelo” winning first prize in a young authors short-form contest in 2021. Alvir has been the recipient of residency fellowships in Split and Zagreb, her literary and political writing on identity and displacement has appeared internationally. She is currently pursuing a PhD in South Slavic literature while working on her second novel, White Salamander.

Lana Bastašić is a Yugoslav-born writer. She majored in English and holds a master’s degree in cultural studies. She has published three collections of short stories, one book of children’s stories, and one of poetry. Her debut novel, Catch the Rabbit (Restless Books, 2021), was shortlisted for the 2019 NIN Award and was awarded the 2020 European Union Prize for Literature. She lives in Belgrade.