ABOUT THE PUBLISHING HOUSE
The Publishing House «Lara» was established in 2001, with the first edition of a war related novel «Confessions of a stranger» by the author and the publisher Ksenija Premur, M.A, with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia. The novel received complimentary and supporting reviews and it was distributed all over Croatia in town and university libraries. In 2006 it was translated and published in Slovenian language by “Obzorje” Publishing in Maribor.
The Publishing House has had a close cooperation with the Ministry of Culture thus enabling a collection of works by the author and the publisher herself to be published, both fiction and non-fiction literature, the latter dealing with Oriental philosophies and comparative philosophy. In 2003 a non-fiction work “Ethos of Knowledge in the Philosophy by Čedomil Veljačić” was published, whereas in 2005 “Comparative Philosophy” saw its publishing. In the field of fiction literature several works have been published: “Arabesque” (a collection of short stories) in 2002, “Unusual Stories” (a collection of short stories) in 2004, “Short Stories” in 2004 and “Mirror” (a collection of short stories) and “Two Stories” in 2005.
However, Lara Publishing does not limit to the self-production of the author/publisher but expands its activities to the translation of valuable works by foreign authors. With the support of the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of the Republic of Austria and Austrian Cultural Forum in Zagreb two translations of works by Dr Wilhelm Baum were published – “Ludwig Wittgenstein between logic and mysticism» and «Karl R. Popper and Critical Rationalism». Underway is also a close cooperation with Slovenian authors in the fields of philosophy, fiction, non-fiction and literary criticism.
The mission of Lara Publishing is to achieve an efficient, intensive and stimulating international cooperation contributing to opening up new horizons of mutual understanding, respect and appreciation of what constitutes the foundation of a society – i.e. culture and cultural cooperation. The introduction into the works by foreign authors contributes to better and more profound understanding of different cultures as well as opening up of a prosperous dialogue leading to a humanistic founded goal of fostering cultural values at the borderlines of various cultural circles all over the world.
A dialogue is the oldest and the only possible form of human communication. It is not only a fact resulting from the mere existence of languages as a human prerogative, but the only and most powerful and efficient way in which various opinions, viewpoints and beliefs, resulting from various cultural, civilisation, religious, ethical, social and political cultural circles, are being confronted and faced through arguments within a logical discourse at the level of universal categories of the mind or simply from an accumulated empirical experience. Hatred and prejudice result from ignorance and lack of understanding, with intolerance, so profoundly and tragically affecting our world, being a product of the lack of communication / dialogue. A dialogue is a way of philosophical thinking in clearing up logical concepts, standpoints and opinions; it is a way of political thinking, it is an exchange of experiences we share within this empirical world of ours and an inner horizon of conditions of a spirit and a soul. A dialogue is pointing to the direction which needs to be taken by those who have lost their ways – losing one’s way is a condition of our contemporary world. A dialogue goes as far and deep as the very roots of our civilisation easily traceable through ancient scriptures reporting on the events of ancient times, on experiences of the world and of the one-caught-in-the-world. At the dawn of civilisations and the culture dialogue sparkled in the sky of the culture and as to prevent it from being forgotten, it was put down into religious, philosophical and literary texts. Lara Publishing finds its incentive for acting in the dialogue itself and through publishing valuable works from all over the world it is attempting to cultivate the dialogue, nurture it and keep giving it a dignity of a civilised communication where participants show deep respect for one another even when they fail to understand each other. To cease communicating means to commit social suicide, a descend into nothingness and a dive into the source of hatred, intolerance and narrow-mindedness. Bertold Brecht once said: “A book is a weapon. Grab it in your hands!”. A book in Lara Publishing House is a weapon against silence annihilating others with its subdued turmoil, raising weapons against it in the chaos of a modern world. Peace-loving, civilized and cultural dialogue is sine qua non of the peace in the world and the calm in the soul of every human.
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
Ksenija Premur was born in Zagreb in 1962. In 1981 she started university – the study of Philosophy and Russian Language at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb. She graduated in 1986, receiving University Rector’s Award. During her studies she started publishing reviews, overview articles and original papers and articles in different journals (Filozofska istraživanja, Dometi, Kulturni radnik and others) from the fields of philosophy and literary theory together with translations of papers from English, Russian and Slovenian language. Since 1982 she has been full time member of the Croatian Philosophical Society, and since 1987 full time member of the Croatian Association of Scientific and Technical Translators, for the purposes of which she has translated a variety of texts from different fields from the abovementioned languages. Since 2003 she has also held a membership in the Croatian Writers Society.
In the period between 1990 and 1993 she was junior assistant at the Department of Philosophy of the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb, where she held seminar lectures and, from 1 July 1991 to 31 August 1993, worked as a junior researcher on a project titled Problems of Contrastive Philosophy (Asian and Western) (personal registered number in the Croatian Register of Scientific Workers: 180 386). In 1997 she earned a master’s degree from the Faculty of Philosophy of the University in Ljubljana with the thesis titled Dynamic Structure of Consciousness in Bergson’s Philosophy. She regularly publishes professional and scientific papers in journals (Filozofska istraživanja and Rival) as well as on Radio Zagreb’s Third Programme where she also regularly publishes both original articles and translations of literary and philosophical texts from the field of Indian, Chinese and Japanese philosophy. She has participated and delivered presentations at symposia both in the country and abroad (Colloquium of Asian Philosophies in Zagreb in 1988, International Symposium in Ceret, France, in 1989, Symposium in Bath, England, in 1992).
In 1997 she took her master’s degree from the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Zagreb in the field of philology with a thesis titled The Theory of Translation. Her master’s thesis The Theory of Translation was published in Ladina Publishing House. She has participated at international symposia abroad (in 1985 at a colloquium in Moscow, in 1995 at the World Congress in Warsaw) presenting papers from the field of literary theory.
In addition to publishing original papers, she also publishes translations of scientific and literary papers from English, Russian and Slovenian language. During the academic year 1997/1998 she worked as a senior lecturer on philosophy, aesthetics and Russian language at the School for Higher Education in Music in Lovran, as well as freelance translator in Zagreb. From academic year 1998 to 2001 she was assistant teacher for Oriental Philosophy course at Croatian Studies with the University of Zagreb.
Alongside her academic work, Ksenija Premur also produces literary pieces, and has, so far, published novels (Lovers, Confession of a Stranger) and collections of stories (Unusual Stories, Arabesque, Short Stories, Mirror, Two Stories).
In 2005 she acquired the status of freelance artist.