Like last year, part of the project READ for 2022 is the program of residency of writers, artists and translators from the Balkans in cities of other countries of the region, namely in Belgrade, Istanbul, Prishtina, Tetovo, and Tirana, being hosted for a period of one month by the partner organizations: KROKODIL (Serbia), Kalem Culture Association (Turkey), Qendra Multimedia (Kosovo), LOJA Center for Balkan Cooperation (North Macedonia), and Instituti i Librit dhe i Promocionit (Albania). We are publishing the interviews that we made to the creative people who benefited from this program of residency during 2022, selected among 74 applicants by an independent committee of professionals. Its importance is best expressed by the words of an interviewee: “When you step away from your country and your context, you can look at them even more accurately and clearly. […] You learn many new things, you get to know fellow artists, their ways of thinking and creating”. To all of the interviewees we put the following questions:
1 – How important is for you the relation between your own creative activity and your societal or cultural surrounding?
2 – What is more important for you as a writer, your directly personal surrounding, the town, or the country in which you live, and why?
3 – What is your experience as a resident in the city you choose in the context of this program?
4 – Why do you write?
