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At the American Corner Novi Sad, on 25 September at 6 pm, writer and artist from Novi Sad, Ljiljana Maletin Vojvodić, presented Silent Reading, a participatory performative action based on the experience of reading together in silence. The format explores reading as an individual experience that, when moved into a public space, becomes a shared act, raising questions about our relationship to time, attention, and the book.

The workshop followed a simple set of guidelines: no introductions, no mobile phones and no obligation to talk about what one was reading. These guidelines, however, were not meant as rigid rules but as an initial framework, leaving room for the workshop to develop according to participants’ needs and interests. After choosing their books and switching off their phones, participants first spent the planned thirty minutes reading in silence. As they wished to continue reading, the silent-reading segment was extended by another fifteen minutes. What followed was a spontaneous exchange of thoughts and experiences that grew naturally out of the shared reading experience, although conversation had not been a required part of the original format.

The conversation opened up a range of subjects — from the experience of reading together without digital interruptions to the books participants had chosen. Particular attention was given to the relationship between original texts and translations, especially as books in Serbian and English were placed alongside editions published in Scandinavian languages.

The discussion touched on the phenomenon of Karl Ove Knausgård and autofiction, Erlend Loe’s novel Doppler and its theatrical adaptation, as well as some of the subjects explored by contemporary Scandinavian and Nordic writers: mental health, family and intimate relationships. The conversation also raised the question of how writers today approach what Miloš Crnjanski, many years ago, described as “literature about mother, father and marriage.”

The selection available to participants included works by authors such as Karl Ove Knausgård, Nina Lykke, Vigdis Hjorth, Fredrik Backman, Ulaug Nilsen, Jo Nesbø, Linda Boström Knausgård, Katrine Holst, Karen Fastrup, Erlend Loe, Tomas Espedal and Per Petterson, as well as works by Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, Knut Hamsun and Ingmar Bergman.

Silent Reading approaches reading as an intimate and individual activity while simultaneously placing it in a shared public space. Each participant reads their own book, at their own pace and in their own way, while the shared experience emerges from the simultaneous presence of these different individual acts of reading.

Within the workshop, reading also became a way of briefly stepping outside the everyday rhythm of notifications, messages and constant availability. Without mobile phones and other interruptions, the planned thirty minutes of silent reading — which ultimately lasted forty-five minutes — demonstrated how the simple act of sitting together with a book in silence can create a different relationship to time and attention.

Silent Reading was conceived by Ljiljana Maletin Vojvodić, who also curated the selection of books, as part of the accompanying programme of her exhibition Nordic Frame at the American Corner Novi Sad.

Alongside adult participants with different professional backgrounds and reading habits, several students from Karlovci Grammar School took part in the workshop with their Norwegian language teacher, Milica Gagić. She expanded the selection of Scandinavian and Nordic authors available in Serbian and English translation by bringing books published in their original Scandinavian languages. This allowed her students to experience reading not only through translation, but also through the relationship between an original text and its translated version.