We are thrilled to be launching ULYSSES’ SHELTER, a project supported by Creative Europe that will give exchange residency opportunities to young writers and translators from Wales, Croatia, Greece, Serbia and Slovenia. The project is led by the Croatian organisation Sandorf and its cute logo refers to the tiny island of Mljet, the residency location where donkeys are the transport of preference.

Ulysses’ Shelter is the second stage of a project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union aiming to build a network of exchange literary residencies across Europe and designed primarily for young writers of prose and/or poetry and literary translators. It is led by the Croatian publisher and literary agency Sandorf and managed jointly by Literature Across Frontiers and Wales Literature Exchange in Wales. The other partners are Krokodil in Belgrade, Serbia, Thraka in Larissa, Greece, and the Slovene Writers Association in Ljubjana, Slovenia.

The literary residency programme will take place on the island Mljet (Croatia), in Ljubljana (Slovenia), in Larissa (Greece), in Belgrade (Serbia) and several locations in Wales, and focuses on audience development and transnational mobility for emerging authors. It will allow young authors and translators to work, perform and present themselves in two different social and cultural contexts. The residencies can bring new opportunities and possibilities to establish contact with other authors, translators, editors, publishers and/or representatives of various literary organisations from Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Wales and Greece. The residencies will be accompanied by a supporting programme of activities and events aimed at specific local target groups.

The theme of the first year of the Ulysses’ Shelter 2 project concerning all the residents chosen in this call is Library – both as a physical space and a virtual database of important and relevant data for any social, cultural or artistic context. Inspired by the setting up of the International Library of Poetry connected with the Mljet residency as a part of Ulysses’ Shelter project, the selected residents will be invited to reflect on the significance of library as one of the most important symbols of peace and mutual human understanding by contributing a poem, an essay, a blog entry or a translation relating to the subject, in addition to any new work they will produce during their residency.

The project logo – donkey carrying a book – refers to the ‘preferred means of transport’ on the tiny Croatian island of Mljet where the project started.