Largest ever french panoramic presentation of croatian writers & artists
This double issue of The Spectre of Freedom was edited by Croatian writer, director and translator now resident in Paris Yves-Alexandre Tripković, literary editor, translator and publicist Nenad Popović and writer and editor Dalibor Šimpraga. Publisher Durieux has released a double issue (Nos. 2 and 3) for 2016 of the Le fantôme de la liberté (The Spectre of Freedom) literary journal featuring 912 pages covering selections and works of contemporary Croatian writers, artists and photographers – the most comprehensive ever published in the French language.
Seventy-one authors are represented in this showpiece selection of works. Noteworthy is the first ever translation into French of a part of Vladan Desnica's The Springs of Ivan Galeb (Proljeća Ivana Galeba). Le fantôme de la liberté also features a translation of the integral text of Slobodan Šnajder's stage play Kamov, the poetry of Ivan Slamnig, Danijel Dragojević, Darko Rundek and Branko Čegec, the essays and opinion journalism articles of Snježana Banović, Dražen Katunarić, Ivo Goldstein and Snježana Kordić, the short stories and excerpts from novels of Daša Drndić, Zoran Ferić, Damir Karakaš and Milko Valent, the stage plays of Janko Polić Kamov, Ivan Vidić, Vlatka Vorkapić, and a number of colour illustrations by Željko Kipke, Sandra Vitaljić, Davor Vrankić and others. This double issue of The Spectre of Freedom was edited by Croatian writer, director and translator now resident in Paris Yves-Alexandre Tripković, literary editor, translator and publicist Nenad Popović and writer and editor Dalibor Šimpraga, says publisher Durieux. The Le fantôme de la liberté journal is co-published by Yves-Alexandre Tripković's Paris-based Theatroom theatre and literature project. The press release notes that all of the authors, translators, language editors and editors working on this issue of The Spectre of Freedom did not collect fees. The annual subsidies provided by the Ministry of Culture and the City of Zagreb would certainly not have covered a project of this scope.
A German language issue of the journal, Phantom der Freiheit, was likewise published in 2008 thanks to the enthusiasm of authors, translators and artists. Phantom der Freiheit was in many ways a watershed German language collection of works by Croatian authors and was published on the occasion of the Leipzig book fair on the year Croatia was the partner country.