Skopje, 27 November 2025 (MIA) — Sofia's Macedonian Cultural and Information Center will host Thursday a poetry evening dedicated to Macedonian poet, translator, publisher and festival organizer Julijana Velichkovska, the winner of the 2025 Struga Poetry Evenings festival's Miladinov Brothers award for her poetry book "Reißverschluss" (2024, PNV Publications).

Macedonian Cultural and Information Center director Zoran Pejkovski and Bulgarian poet and literary scholar Poli Mukanova will speak about Velichkovska's poetry.

Julijana Velichkovska (b. 1982, Skopje) has a bachelor's degree in Macedonian literature and South Slavic literatures from the state university's Blazhe Koneski Faculty of Philology. She is the founder of the publishing house PNV Publications, a co-founder and director of the Skopje Poetry Festival, Ohrid's Velestovo Poetry Night Festival program director and a member of the Macedonian Writers Association.

She is the author of three poetry books — "Reißverschluss" (2024, PNV Publications), "Open Book" (2017, PNV Publications) and "Mosquitoes" (2010, PNV Publications) — as well as the novel "Seasons" (2014, PNV Publications) and the 2023 Litera Children's Literature and Illustration Festival award-winning children's book "Vedra" (2022, PNV Publications).

Velichkovska has also authored a Velestovo Poetry Night festival monograph and translated writers from Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Norway, Iceland, Greece, Estonia, Latvia, Serbia, Croatia, Denmark, Azerbaijan, Malta, the Faroe Islands, and Montenegro into Macedonian. 

Her own works have been translated into 20 languages. Her novel "Seasons" was translated into Bulgarian and published in Sofia, Bulgaria, by Ergo in 2017. "Box of Fear," a selection of her poems translated into Azerbaijani, was published in Baku, Azerbaijan, by Zardabi in 2024. "Expecting Lions," a selection of her poems translated into English, is forthcoming by Three Spires Press in Cork, Ireland, 2025. mr/