From March 27 to 30, 2026, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC), in collaboration with the WOW Foundation, presents the fourth edition of the WOW – Women of the World Athens festival, the world’s largest event for women, femininity, and non-binary individuals. WOW Athens attempts to address the most pressing issues concerning the struggle for gender equality, both locally and internationally, and to give a platform to voices that inspire and offer hope for a more just world.

In this context, on Friday, March 27, at 6:30 p.m. at the SNFCC Lighthouse, the stage adaptation of Rumena Bužarovska’s short stories My Husband, directed by Maria Maganari, will be presented. The director, together with Maria Skoula and Amalia Kavali, convey women’s stories, breathing life into the characters of Bužarovska’s short stories, which move between the comic and the dramatic. After the performance, which marks the start of WOW Athens 2026, opening up a space for collective reflection on gender, relationships, and contemporary female identity, the festival’s first keynote speech will follow with author, translator, and professor of American literature at the University of Skopje, Rumena Bužarovska.

Bužarovska’s short stories unfold a sharp yet humorous universe of female narratives. Although the title suggests that the work is about men, the stories focus mainly on women: wives, lovers, mothers, daughters, friends. They describe the human condition in terms of patriarchy, while humorously and harshly mapping the dynamics of relationships within couples and families in a contemporary, patriarchal Balkan society—one that closely resembles our own. They reveal both our delusion about women’s liberation and the dead ends of men; both sexes are suffocating, trapped in their traditional roles.

“I don’t belong to my father, I don’t belong to my husband, I belong to myself,” said Greek feminists in the 1970s and 1980s. The narratives begin with the banal and the familiar, leading to an inner, almost archetypal realm where secrets, lies, and conflicts become an integral part of human coexistence. On stage, women’s bodies function as vessels of memory and experience, reflecting not only failed marriages, but also the contradictions of the societies that give rise to them.

Translation: Alexandra Ioannidou

Dramaturgy, Director: Maria Maganari

Cast: Maria Skoula, Amalia Kavali, Μaria Maganari

Music: Thodoris Economou

Set Design: Μaria Maganari, Pavlos Thanopoulos

Costumes: Pavlos Thanopoulos

Rumena Bužarovska

Rumena Bužarovska 

BIO

Rumena Bužarovska is a writer, translator, and professor of American literature at the University of Skopje. She is one of the most important contemporary literary voices in Southeast Europe, with works that have been translated into more than fifteen languages and have gained international recognition. Her writing, sharp and deeply human-centered, focuses on interpersonal relationships and the delicate balances of everyday life, shedding light on critical social and cultural issues.

She is the author of the essay collection Next to God, America (2024) and a study devoted to humor in contemporary American and Macedonian short stories (2012), and has translated works by important authors such as J. M. Coetzee, Lewis Carroll, Truman Capote, and Flannery O’Connor. She is also the co-founder and co-organizer of the women’s platform PeachPreach in North Macedonia, co-host of the feminist podcast Radio Mileva, and a columnist for Velike Priče magazine.