Monika Herceg (b. 1990, Sisak, Croatia) is a poet, writer, and editor based in Zagreb. Her work has been translated into numerous languages and published in more than ten countries, including the United States, Germany, and Poland. She is the author of several acclaimed poetry collections and one of the most awarded voices of her generation in Croatian literature.
Herceg has received over twenty literary awards, among them the international Bridges of Struga Award, the Central European Initiative Award for Young Authors, and the European Poet of Freedom Award. Her writing is recognized for its linguistic precision, emotional intensity, and its exploration of themes such as poverty, violence, memory, and the body.
In addition to poetry, Herceg writes drama and prose. Her first play received the award of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb and premiered there in 2021. In 2025, two more stage adaptations based on her texts were produced. Alongside her literary work, she is active as an editor and curator of literary programs, and she leads workshops and initiatives supporting emerging writers.
Breaking the Silence – Poetry Workshop
Breaking the Silence is a poetry workshop designed to explore how language can confront and dismantle silence, both personal and collective. Through writing and close reading of contemporary poetry, participants are invited to approach subjects often marked by discomfort, taboo, or suppression, and to find ways of articulating them through their own poetic voice.
The workshop is grounded in the idea that silence is never singular: individual silences are shaped by broader social, cultural, and political structures, just as collective silences are sustained through personal restraint and internalization. By working through poetry, we begin to expose these connections and create space for speech where there was none. The program is structured in two parts. The first session focuses on individual silence, the unsaid within personal experience, and the ways in which the body, memory, and emotion resist or delay articulation. The second session shifts toward collective silence, examining how societies produce and maintain taboos, and how poetry can intervene in these shared structures.
Across both sessions, participants will engage in guided writing exercises and discussions, as well as readings of selected poets whose work confronts silence in different ways.