The Literary Map of Bucharest’s District 1

Throughout October, Bucharest is playing host to the project "You're Neighbours with Literature in District 1."

Ion Puican, 24.10.2026, 14:00

The series of events forms part of The Literary Map, a cultural initiative that takes literature out of bookshops and onto the streets of District 1. Writers and literary stories can be discovered across the neighbourhoods of Grivița, Gara de Nord, Matache, Bucureștii Noi and Domenii.

The idea behind the project is simple: many of the streets, squares and buildings we pass every day have, in fact, appeared in Romanian novels, memoirs and poems, yet their stories often remain invisible to the people who live there. Cristina Foarfă, founder of The Literary Map, spoke to us about the project:

“The project ‘You’re Neighbours with Literature in District 1’, developed by The Literary Map and funded by the District 1 City Hall, has a very simple aim. We want to explore District 1 on foot and uncover its stories. Why? Because District 1 is full of literature. There are countless places here that are rich in symbolism, rich in fiction and poetry. It would be a shame for the people who live there, as well as those who work there or spend a great deal of time there, not to know these stories.

It is also a way of discovering books and literature. It is a way of discovering new authors. Above all, it is a way of looking differently at the places we pass through every day.

There are countless stories to be found in District 1. A large part of the action in Eugen Barbu’s novel The Pit (Groapa), a classic and representative Bucharest novel, takes place here, despite the author’s controversial reputation. We find a great deal of classical literature. We find Mihail Sebastian, for example, through his diary. We find Liviu Rebreanu. We find Eliade, of course. But we also find contemporary literature. Every corner of District 1 is full of stories. I invite everyone to visit hartaliterara.ro/sector-1 and discover them for themselves.”

The Literary Map is Romania’s first interactive map of literary locations. Launched in Bucharest, it expanded in 2026 to Brașov, Iași, Timișoara and Chișinău. To date, the platform has documented more than 2,000 connections between real places and books.

The programme also attracts people who would not normally attend cultural events. Do they identify with the idea of a literary map?

“The fact that, within less than a year, the project has grown from Bucharest to Brașov, Iași, Timișoara and even Chișinău, I think, demonstrates that people genuinely enjoy this kind of initiative. They connect with the idea of a literary map. They want to explore, they want to walk, and they want to discover stories.

We have been delighted by the warm reception we’ve received in every city we’ve visited.

For us, neighbourhood audiences are extremely important, perhaps the most important of all. The people who live in a neighbourhood know better than anyone what happens on their street. More importantly, they are the ones most interested in finding out what has been written about their street, their apartment block, the nursery school their child attends, the hospital where they received treatment, or even the tax office where they pay their taxes. They have an intimate connection with those places.”

Cristina Foarfă also explained what the project means for young people:

“We wanted pupils and young people to meet writers. To interact with them and ask them questions. More often than you might think, we’ve heard reactions such as: ‘I didn’t even realise there were writers who are still alive.’ That has come from children and teenagers, though especially from younger children.

They did not know that there are writers actively working on books right now, books that will soon appear on bookshop shelves and that they themselves will eventually read.

For children, I believe it is something truly valuable to be able to interact with writers. To ask them questions such as: ‘How do you write? Why did you write it that way? What does it mean to be a writer? Why is reading important?'”

Cristina Foarfă also shared more about the guided literary tours, how they are prepared and how their routes are chosen:

“Preparing a tour like this is no easy task, I won’t pretend otherwise. We usually begin with the author. In other words, we start with writers who have something meaningful to say about a particular place. We consider who might best represent that location, District 1, for example.

Depending on availability, we select the writers who will lead the tours. I am very pleased to say that, so far, we have not received a single refusal. Every writer we have invited to lead a literary tour has accepted. That has been both an honour and a great pleasure for us.

The route itself is chosen by the writer. We never impose a route. The writer decides where they want to go because they know their own work best. They know exactly what they want to talk about.

Broadly speaking, there are two approaches. Some writers talk about the places that appear in their own books. Others tell wider literary stories, making connections with other works, perhaps from the classics, choosing a particular theme and following its traces through the city.”

At the end of the project, fifty new literary locations from District 1 will be added to the platform. Cristina Foarfă told us about her hopes for the future of The Literary Map:

“Indeed, a great many new locations from District 1 will remain on The Literary Map. In fact, there are already numerous locations from District 1 on the platform, and they will remain there permanently. No one is going to remove them.

They can be accessed at any time and used, for example, to create literary routes that support the teaching of particular books in the classroom. They can also be used to develop activities for children, to follow in the footsteps of a writer, for example, or to explore a particular literary period.

We might, for instance, explore the interwar years. Calea Victoriei is full of references from interwar Romanian literature.

Yes, these places will remain on the map, and this project will certainly continue. The Literary Map is continuing to grow and evolve. It is a project that still needs support and long-term sustainability, but I am very confident that this will happen because we have seen just how warmly it has been welcomed so far.” (VP)