Anja Kamenarič

CLMCE Summer School: Communities, Fandoms and Materiality

Reading Spaces: Children’s Bookstores as Cultural and Emotional Environments

Lecture at Academy of Sciences and Literature, Mainz

04. 08. 2026, 10:00 – 11:00

This lecture will explore children’s bookstores as cultural, educational, and emotional environments that shape children’s relationships to books, reading, and storytelling. Drawing on my professional experience working in the bookstore of Ljubljana Puppet Theatre — the only independent children’s bookstore in Slovenia — I will examine how bookstores mediate between literature, performance, pedagogy, and cultural participation.

The talk will focus on how children’s bookstores create reading cultures through spatial design, curation, workshops, author events, exhibitions, and interactions between children, parents, educators, and booksellers. Alongside the Ljubljana case study, I will include comparative examples of international children’s bookstores and literary-cultural spaces to situate the Slovenian context within broader discussions on children’s reading environments and literary mediation.

Books in Translation

Trends and Transformations in the European Publishing Market

Written by Miha Kovač, Rüdiger Wischenbart, Yana Genova and Anja Kamenarič

The report was developed within the international ThinkPub project and supported by the Creative Europe programme. It provides a comprehensive analysis of how translated books are produced, distributed, and marketed across European markets, with a focus on smaller linguistic regions and independent publishers. It highlights that in small markets, translations are essential—making up 20–40% of output—while larger markets rely more on domestic works, and that translation flows remain heavily dominated by English, reinforcing cultural imbalances despite emerging trends like the rise of Japanese literature. The report identifies a major shift in the role of translators toward active market agents and emphasizes the growing influence of digital platforms, self-publishing, and subscription services in reshaping the industry. It also finds that AI and machine translation tools, while expanding, currently favor dominant languages and pose challenges for smaller ones. Finally, the report evaluates public funding systems, noting uneven support and strategic gaps across countries, and positions translation as a critical infrastructure for cultural diversity, market sustainability, and access to knowledge in Europe.

Out now! Download here: Books in Translation