Mojca Kumerdej: TEMNA SNOV / DARK MATTER - book presentation

Tuesday 17 May at 7 pm - the presentation of the short story collection Temna snov by Mojca Kumerdej. The discussion with the author will be hosted by Suzana Tratnik.

The collection Temna snov/Dark matter took a long time to ripen. It is written in a precise, controlled language, disclosing in no way how it was stolen from silence. In astronomy, the dark matter is invisible and only recognisable through its effects. Likewise in her new collection Mojca Kumerdej does not portray shocking intrusions into the everyday life directly but rather articulates them in polyphony of authentic voices that the events have marked. She unveils the thin line between personal freedom and various attempts at co-existence in the society with a psychological refinement that tolerates no deviations and no creativity, yet it attempts to reduce the human being to the level of the tax number, robot or biological matter. In the centre of attention we again find the body seeking to overshadow the thanatos with the eros, and being faced again and again with its limitation and transience. More than anything, what Mojca Kumerdej brings to Slovenian prose aside from analytic sharpness and the juicy, brilliant language, is the component that is all too rare: intelligent humour.

Mojca Kumerdej, writer and art critic, mostly for the field of dance, was born in 1964 in Ljubljana. She studied philosophy and sociology of culture at the Faculty of Arts, Ljubljana. Since 1998 she has been contributing regularly to academic and artistic magazines, such as Problemi, the former Razgledi and Maska, and particularly to Delo newspaper, where she records insightfully in her columns, articles, interviews and critiques the developments in contemporary dance, theatre, performance, film and literature.

2001 saw the release of he debut novel Krst nad Triglavom, and 2003 saw the release of her short story collection Fragma (2003).

The programme has been supported by The Slovenian Book Agency.

ACE KIBLA programme is supported by the Ministry of Culture, Municipality of Maribor and The Slovenian Office of Youth. KIBLA is a part of Multimedia Centres Net Slovenia.