Nobel Prize for Literature winner Abdulrazak Gurnah, Irish novelist, poet and playwright Colm Tóibín, Spanish author Clara Usón, Israeli writer Zeruya Shalev, and French novelist and essayist Pascal Bruckner are among the guests of this year’s Iaşi International Festival of Literature and Translation (FILIT).

The event, scheduled to take place between October 23 and October 27, is held in the northeastern Romania city of Iași, which is part of the UNESCO Cities of Literature Network.

The list of guest from abroad also includes Lana Bastašić (Bosnia-Herzegovina/Serbia), Naoise Dolan (Ireland/Germany), Ariana Harwicz (Argentina/France), Tahar Ben Jelloun (Morocco/France), Kapka Kassabova (Bulgaria/United Kingdom), Markus Köhle (Austria), Alena Mornštajnová (Czech Republic), Kathrine Nedrejord (Norway), Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer (The Netherlands), and Defne Suman (Turkey) /Greece).

Romanian authors or authors of Romanian origin, such as Radu Aldulescu, Adrian Alui Gheorghe, Liviu Antonesei, Raluca Antonescu, Vasile Baghiu, Ruxandra Burcescu, Mihaela Buruiană, Lena Chilari, Denisa Comănescu, Tudor Crețu, Peter Demeny, Anda Docea, Cătălin Dorian Florescu, Emilian Galaicu-Păun, Iulia Gherasim, Raluca Nagy, Tiberiu Neacșu, Laura Francisca Pavel, Bogdan O. Popescu, Cristian Teodorescu, Tatiana Tîbuleac, Anda Vahnovan, and Matei Vișniec, will also attend the event.

A dedicated part of the program features the translators of Romanian literature, with names such as Miruna Bacali (Germany), Jan Willem Bos (The Netherlands), Angela Bratsou (Greece), Sean Cotter (United States), Florica Courriol (France), Jean-Louis Courriol (France), Gabriella Koszta (Hungary), Steiner Lone (Norway), Bruno Mazzoni (Italy), Lora Nenkovska (Bulgaria), and Marian Ochoa de Eribe (Spain) set to be present.

At the same time, FILIT will host the national meeting of Romanian writers and translators selected in the European project Connecting Emerging Literary Artists (CELA), co-financed by the Creative Europe Program of the European Union. Writers Iulian Bocai, Paula Erizanu, Ioana Maria Stăncescu, and ten translators from foreign languages ​​into Romanian will take part: Mădălina Balea and Andreea Bălteanu (Dutch), Jessica Bilcec (Ukrainian), Ilinca Gângă (Spanish), George Doru Ivan (Italian), Sergiu Lozinschi (Slovenian), Maria Lupescu (Bulgarian), Aleksandra Petrov (Serbian), Andrei Săndulescu (Czech), and Oana-Andreea Stoe (Polish).

This is just the first series of guests at this year’s event, the organizers have said. More names will be announced soon.

(Photo: FILIT Iași Facebook Page)

simona@romania-insider.com