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Laguna Publishing was founded in 1998 in Belgrade and is one of the biggest publishing houses in Serbia with almost 400 publications a year. Since it was established, Laguna has published over 4.500 titles.

History

In early 1998, Dejan Papić, who was a computer programmer at the time, translated Terry Pratchett's ''The Colour of Magic'', so that his wife could read it in their native language. However, when he tried to acquire the rights for the title, he learned he couldn't do so as an individual and that he needed the help of a publishing house instead. Soon after that, in April 1998, Mr. Papić founded his own publishing house, Laguna. During its initial years, the publishing company faced a bombing, a social crisis and lack of funds, so it progressed at a slow pace. Only one title was published in the first year, two the following and four the year after that. In the year 2000, Laguna began publishing titles by other authors popular worldwide. The list of publications grew year after year, only to reach 350 published titles a year, thus becoming one of the most productive publishing companies in Europe.

Authors and publications

Laguna's first editions were titles by one of the most popular British authors, Terry Pratchett. Today, some of this publisher's foreign language titles include the names of classic authors (Shakespeare, Goethe, Gogol, Chekhov, Kafka, Proust, Musil) and numerous contemporary writers with works mostly from English, Spanish, German, French and Russian speaking territories such as: Nobel winners Mario Vargas Llosa, Herta Muller, José Saramago, Gunter Grass, Toni Morrison, Czeslaw Milosz, Mo Yan, Svetlana Alexievich, George Eliot, Max Frisch, Mark Aldanov, Sylvia Plath, Agatha Christie, Henry Miller, Hans Fallada, John Cheever, Bret Easton Ellis, Amin Maalouf, Ana María Matute, Tony Parsons, Roberto Bolaño, Margaret Atwood, Martin Walser, Bill Bryson, Khaled Hosseini, Victor Pelevin, Lucinda Riley and many others.

Laguna has also published a great number of Serbian classics and works by contemporary authors and the list includes names such as Vuk Karadžić, Stevan Sremac, Borisav Stanković, Branislav Nušić, Ivo Andrić, Miloš Crnjanski, Slobodan Selenić, Borislav Pekić, Svetlana Velmar-Janković, Dobrica Ćosić, Miroslav Antić, Đorđe Lebović, Živojin Pavlović, Dušan Radović, Dragoslav Mihailović, Dušan Kovacević, Ljubivoje Ršumović, Filip David, Dragan Velikić, Radoslav Petković, Svetislav Basara, Goran Petrović, Vladan Matijević, Jovica Aćin, Goran Gocić, Ljubica Arsić, Vule Žurić, Ivana Dimić, Vladimir Kecmanović, Vladimir Arsenijević, Radmila Lazić, Nikola Malović, Ivan Ivanji, Igor Marojević, Mirjana Novaković, Uroš Petrović, Dejan Stojiljković, Slobodan Vladušić, Marko Vidojković, Vladimir Tabašević, Viktor Lazić and others.

Apart from titles from all fiction genres by foreign and Serbian authors, Laguna publishes short story collections, essays, autobiographies, travel books, children's books, picture books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, memoirs of distinguished historical and musical figures, cookbooks, titles about popular science, philosophy, psychology, mythology, and art.

Business

The first bookstore was opened in Belgrade in 2009 in Makedonska street and another was opened the same year in number 48, Kralja Milana street, in the building of the Student Cultural Centre (SKC). Shortly after this, a sister company Delfi and a bookstore chain were founded, using Laguna's ten-year experience in publishing and modeled after the best and most popular international bookstore chains. Today, Delfi bookstores has a total of 43 stores.

Laguna does not cover only the Serbian market, but has an active presence in Montenegro, where there are four readers' clubs, as well as in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where Laguna has eight readers' clubs. In its gradual expansion over the years, Laguna began opening readers' clubs in cities all over Serbia and today there are over 600 000 members in 60 clubs in 29 cities in Serbia ( Belgrade, Lazarevac, Smederevo, Novi Sad, Niš, Kragujevac, Zrenjanin, Gornji Milanovac, Jagodina, Kraljevo, Leskovac, Pančevo, Požarevac, Lebane, Sremska Mitrovica, Subotica, Valjevo, Vršac, Zaječar, Čačak, Šabac, Kruševac and Užice) and the region (Bijeljina, Banja Luka, Sarajevo, Tuzla, Nikšić, Podgorica).

Twice a year, in June and December, Laguna hosts Book Night, a popular event during which there is a big discount not only for Laguna's titles but for books from other publishers as well. The first Book Night was organized in 2009 and this event promoting the love of books and reading has been organized every year across Serbia. By popularity and the number of visitors, it is second only to the Belgrade Book Fair. Apart from this one, Laguna organizes many other events to engage their existing members and attract new ones. Some of them include ''Let's exchange gifts'', when every person to donate blood gets a book as a present, ''Autograph for Safety'', during which all collected funds are used to equip the sensory room in Dušan Dugalić, a school for children with special needs; ''Bring Libraries to Life Again'' has enabled the collection of over 15,000 books to help libraries destroyed in the floods of 2014. Laguna has also hosted numerous book donations for schools and other institutions and their libraries, as well as for women in safe houses; together with Coca-Cola Laguna has organized book donations for orphaned children and joined forces with the bank Eurobank and the Ana and Vlade Divac Foundation to open libraries in 27 daycare centers across Serbia.

With the desire to bring the literary world to their readers, Laguna regularly organizes literary evenings in all major Serbian cities, in collaboration with many Serbian authors and has been host to numerous foreign authors as well. The list of popular writers that have visited Serbia at Laguna's invitation are Mario Vargas Llosa, Tony Parsons, Tracy Chevalier, Tariq Ali, Amitav Ghosh

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