Ena Katarina Haler and Julijana Matanovic: writers who have transformed the past into reality

At the Zagreb Book Festival 2025, which takes place from May 12 to May 16 under the theme « Time-From Remembrance to Vision », a « writer’s writer in time » was particularly observed, held on Wednesday at the Cultural and Information Center (KIC). Two prominent authors associated with Osijek participated in this conversation: Julijana Matanovic and Ena Katarina Haler. Both authors are known for exploring women’s destiny in their works, family history and personal memories, contributing to understanding the past through literature.

Ena Katarina Haler, born in 1996 in Osijek, graduated in architecture and urbanism from the Faculty of Architecture in Zagreb. Her first novel « Amazing » (VBZ, 2019) is inspired by the real events from her grandmother Katarina’s life, thus connecting the author of a personal family history with literary creativity. In an interview, she emphasized that her grandmother’s stories served as the basis for shaping the main heroine of the novel, thus translated into a literary expression.

– The inspiration was my grandmother, more specifically one period of her life, which she told me a lot when I was little and left to me, her death. But the heroine is primarily that, literary character; There is a grandmother, as he would be in my childhood, youth, youth … It is inevitable that there is also me, yet the book was created through much of my growing up, generally I think it is impossible not to enroll at least to some extent in the text, but I did not write directly from confessional position. In some things, I find similarities to Katarin, in some we diverge. Over time, she became a combination of real grandmother Katarina, me and fiction, she became more for me for so many years as an imaginary best friend – said Ena Katarina.

She emphasized that the interpretation of each work is always a personal matter and something everyone is entitled to.

– The first step after completing a manuscript would definitely be to give it to someone, seek opinion and advice. It is realistic that young authors have a lack of experience, and with all potential talent and work on the text, it is necessary to allow access to someone on the side, who will be able to read it objectively. I would say that it is actually the most important thing to do this personal departure – at least try not to experience the text as part of yourself, but to allow yourself to work on it – added Ena Katarina.

Julijana Matanovic, also from Osijek, is known for her works exploring women’s perspectives and family relationships. Her ability to transmit complex emotions and experiences through literature, she makes her one of the most important contemporary Croatian authors.

– In order to endure my life, I looked at my life as a story, some experienced it as a diagnosis. I started writing relatively late, at 38 years old – said Matanovic, recalling her childhood.

– You come from Bosnian Kasabica to the Slavonian town, so you are always a little Bosnian who has to be the best student to be the same. Then you come from a smaller place to a larger place in the high school, so you are a passenger who may not have had a elementary school as strong as in that mix where you came to high school. Then you go a little further, to college, where you have to prove yourself again because you came from the province. I am tired of these huge proofs. If I wrote really what that life was like, then all that you think was hard to be so funny. I also take elements of my own biography because I can get that emotion I need from it – said Matanovic.

She emphasized that she no longer wants to apologize to anyone for writing about her life and experiences. She points out that she would never dare to write about something she does not have her own experience that, as her books testify, is really difficult.

She pointed out that her path completely determined her childhood trauma when she was taken from her mother at three years. She said she didn’t even know if her parents had donated her or, as her mother’s family spoke, abducted her. So she wrote stories to get the answer herself.

– That intolerance, even hatred, my aunt, a woman who raised me and who I grew up with, to my mother, I couldn’t understand that. My mother was much younger than her, 14 years old, and she was a woman fragile, timid, unlike my aunt. She didn’t just raise me that I had some Bosnian roots, even though she was from there. It took me a lot of years to understand why it was, because by killing Bosnia in me, in fact, she achieved it to kill my origin and my parents. But despite everything I love my parents, I love my mother, my father. And I love aunt, even though she was a very cold person – said Matanovic.

The Zagreb Book Festival is one of the most significant literary events in Croatia. His rich and diverse program brings together a relevant domestic and foreign names every year – from the most famous writers to public intellectuals, scientists, journalists and artists. Through reading, conversations, panel discussions and presentation, the festival is addressed to a wide audience – from young readers to professionals from the culture world.

The Zagreb Book Festival 2025 program consists of about twenty literary events that will participate in about fifty domestic and foreign writers. Martin Puchner, Ena Katarina Haler, Eskil Skjeldal, Lea YPI, Ivica Djikic, Ekelund Torbjorn, Dario Harjacek, Michael Martens, Julijana Matanovic, Mario Angel Quinterro, Nina Violic, Zarko Paic, Darko Marcinko, Rajko Grlic, Tomislav Pletenac …