At the beginning of the month, a book titled Dolga pot do miru (The Long Road to Peace), one of the main results of the BeWoP project, was published.
The book was issued by the Fundacija Poti miru v Posočju (The Walk of Peace Foundation in the Soča Region) in cooperation with the project partners (ZRC SAZU, Promoturismo FVG, the Municipality of Miren–Kostanjevica, EZTS GO, and éStoria) with the support of the BeWoP project, co-financed by the European Union under the Interreg Italy–Slovenia Programme, and in collaboration with the publishing house UMco.
The Long Road to Peace is a unique and highly topical book by a Slovenian–Italian author duo, addressing questions of memory, history, trauma, and the importance of storytelling. Boštjan Videmšek, a long-time (anti)war correspondent and author of several books, travels through war-torn areas across space and time, from the eastern battlefields of the First World War in Galicia, through the sites of horror in Auschwitz and Srebrenica, to the ongoing war in Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza, which casts a dark shadow over his entire narrative. Along the way, he asks whether war ever truly ends and what the path to peace looks like. World traveler, hiker, musician, and radio host Abha Valentina Lo Surdo walks the battlefields of the Isonzo Front, today connected by the Walk of Peace from the Alps to the Adriatic, meeting various interlocutors living along the former front line. Her narrative is interwoven with letters from her great-grandfather, who fought on the Isonzo Front in these very places.
The book’s premiere presentation took place on 13 November in Tolmin as part of the evening talks and lectures Podpisani!, filling the venue to the last seat. The next presentation will be held on 4 December at 19:00 at the Vodnik Homestead in Ljubljana.
The Italian edition of the book is expected to be published in March next year by Terre di Mezzo.
