Sa(n)jam knjige u Istri 2026: Pula's book festival, 27 Nov to 6 Dec

Sa(n)jam knjige u Istri, a name that plays on sajam (fair) and sanjam (I dream), is Pula's festival of books and authors, and its 32nd edition runs from Friday 27 November to Sunday 6 December 2026 at Dom hrvatskih branitelja, Leharova 1. More than 100 authors, writers, philosophers, theorists and artists from Croatia, the region and further afield take part in around 100 events: book launches, round tables, exhibitions, screenings and staged storytelling (visitpula.hr).

This year's theme is La vita è bella, read not as easy optimism but, with a nod to Roberto Benigni's film, as a defence of life in its hardest moments (tportal). The fair's website gives opening hours of 09:00 to 21:00, and the detailed programme with times appears on sanjamknjige.hr.

Ljubljana Reads, for the tenth time

The longest-running regional strand of the fair is Ljubljana bere (Ljubljana Reads), created in 2016 together with the city of Ljubljana, a UNESCO City of Literature. For its tenth edition the anthropologist and philosopher Svetlana Slapšak, the writer Agata Tomažič and the writer and photographer Dušan Šarotar take the stage, the artist Samira Kentrić, the cultural theorist Mitja Velikonja and the writer Pia Prezelj appear for the first time, and Goran Vojnović, writer, screenwriter, director and a favourite of the Pula audience, is back as well (Glas Istre).

Tomažič, Šarotar and Vojnović also open a new storytelling programme, Pričamo priče (We Tell Stories), with stories written around this year's theme, and Slapšak joins the philosopher Predrag Finci and the essayist Zdravko Zima at a round table on life's paradox of sudden highs and dizzying falls. Pia Prezelj presents her award-winning debut novel, published in Croatian as Teška voda. The high point is the Night of Galleries, where the Ljubljana collaboration began ten years ago: Samira Kentrić shows Pratim trendove (I Follow Trends) at the City Gallery Pula and Dušan Šarotar shows Zvjezdana karta (Star Map) at Galerija Makina.

Since 2024 the exchange also runs the other way: every year the fair takes a writer to Ljubljana's Indigo festival at Galerija Cukrarna. This year it is the Montenegrin and Bosnian writer Andrej Nikolaidis, on Friday 9 October at 17:00, and the full Ljubljana programme is presented at a press conference the same morning.

Pula at the start of Advent

The fair overlaps with the start of Advent in Pula on Sunday 29 November, so a weekend visit gets books by day and Christmas lights in the evening; the dates for every coastal town are in our Advent guide. Pula's centre is compact, so the Arena and the Forum are easy to combine with the fair, see what to see in Pula and what to expect from the November weather.