35 years after the Romanian Revolution, the Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR) celebrated freedom in all its creative forms, at a new edition of the London Book Fair. Under the motto “Voices of Freedom”, Romania’s participation in this year’s edition of the London Book Fair, one of the largest events devoted to professionals in the literary field, was dedicated to all generations of local writers who have created in an epoch of full freedom of speech. The Romanian Cultural Institute prepared a program of events that included book launches, conferences and spoken word performances, which took place at the ICR stand at the fair, the ICR London headquarters, the Barbican library and Conway Hall.
Eli Bădică, the coordinator and initiator of the collection of contemporary Romanian literature by Nemira Editorial Group, spoke to us about Romania’s participation in the London Book Fair from her perspective as a publisher: “A fair like this is also accessible to the public, but it is not a book sale fair. It is not a fair similar to those held in Romania, within which many events and launches take place, it is an event dedicated especially to literary agents, publishers, cultural managers and translators, to literary and commercial networking. It is an important fair for me and my colleagues, who are active in this industry, it is the second largest fair after Frankfurt in terms of importance worldwide. That’s why they are somehow strategically scheduled, in spring and autumn, because they are the fairs where translation rights are usually bought. Returning to Romania’s presence at this edition of the fair, part of the events took place at the headquarters of the Romanian Cultural Institute in London, and another two events took place in libraries, some splendid spaces. Romanian writers, literary critics and cultural managers were present and participated in some very interesting discussions. Also, the few recently published translations from Romanian into English were also presented. And during these events, a discussion was brought up that only 3% of the Anglo-Saxon book market is represented by translations.I’m saying this to understand how difficult this mission of publishers is, to try to find publishing houses for Romanian writers in this space, where English dominates the book market. I had some meetings in London with translators, editors and agents really interested in what Romanian writers write. What very few people know is that usually the editorial plans that are made in this space are considering very few writers from the East, sometimes only one in an editorial year. So, you have to try to convince the publisher, translator or the agent that that writer from Eastern Europe deserves to be a Romanian writer.”
Participation in this edition of the London Book Fair opened with an event dedicated to the voices of female writers from Romania and Great Britain. One of the writers who participated in that debate was Elena Vlădăreanu, the initiator and coordinator of the “Sofia Nădejde” Prize, awarded to contemporary Romanian writers.
Elena Vlădăreanu: “One of the writers participating in this discussion was Alina Purcaru. Alina Purcaru is also the coordinator, together with Paula Erizanu, of the three-volume anthology ‘A century of Romanian poetry written by women’ published by the Cartier publishing house. It is a very important anthology because Alina and Paula have collected a century of Romanian poetry, selecting and managing to bring in the spotlight writers that many people have not even heard of. Two very interesting writers and philosophers from Great Britain, with very rich work and PhDs in philosophy, Suzannah Lipscomb and Hannah Dawson, also participated in the same discussion. Suzannah Lipscomb is a specialist in history and has recently initiated a prize for non-fiction literature, which complements the prize already being granted in the UK for fiction. This prize which she initiated is called the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction. At the debate organized by ICR London, Suzannah Lipscomb said she came up with the idea of the award after noticing that references in the academia were mostly to texts and research written by men. In this way, she thought of highlighting these non-fiction texts written by women and that is why she initiated the award, which this year will be granted for the first time. In turn, Hannah Dawson, a specialist in the philosophy of language, has recently published an anthology at Penguin entitled The Penguin Book of Feminist Writing. To compile this anthology, Dawson went through at least 100 years of literature written by women. She was interested, first of all, in finding those unknown texts that address feminist themes. And she was surprised to find very old texts, texts even more than 100 years old, which addressed in a very contemporary way feminist themes, such as equality, the right to education, the social status of women, the relationships that women have within the family as well as within society.”
Mădălina Căuneac, Liliana Corobca, Cosmin Perța, Florentin Popa, Maria Stadnicka, Matei Vișniec, Marius Chivu, Bogdan Crețu, Alex Ciorogarand, Susan Curtis, Iulian Morar, Gabi Reigh and Milena Deleva are on the list of participants attending the events organized by the Romanian Cultural Institute in London as part of the London Book Fair. (LS)