Between October 4 and 8, the city of Iasi
\nhosted the fifth Iasi International Literature and Translation Festival
\n(FILIT). It brought together writers, translators, editors, festival organisers,
\nbooksellers, managers and culture journalists. Nobel Prize winner in literature
\nin 2000, Gao Xingjian, was among those attending the festival. At first, organisers
\nhad announced that one of the guests was going to be the Nobel Prize winner for
\n2015, Svetlana Alexievich, who cancelled her attendance for health reasons.
\nHere is writer Florin Lazarescu, one of the founding members of the festival: <\/p>\n
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I am glad the list of guests attracts people
\nhere, but the main attraction is the list of over 100 events, all equally
\nspectacular and interesting. Speaking of the Nobel Prize, I would like to say
\nthat this FILIT edition has been attended by three other very highly valued
\nwriters, who will possibly get the Nobel prize themselves. Everyone has read
\nMircea Cartarescu, but not many people know how highly appreciated two of our
\nguests are, Olga Tokarczuk of Poland and Nurruddin Farah of Somalia, both of
\nwhom have a sensible shot at winning the Nobel. There are many more interesting
\nwriters, whose writings have been translated into 30 to 40 languages, who have
\nwon many awards, and whose books have been published by the most prestigious
\npublishing houses in Romania. Vesna Goldsworthy of Serbia, and Lisa Stromme, a
\nBrit living in Norway, author of Raspberry Girl, published by Humanitas Fiction
\nin 2017, are two of the writers you can meet at FILIT. Not to mention Jonathan
\nCoe, who is immensely successful in Romania, you should see the reaction we got
\nwhen we announced he would be coming.<\/p>\n
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After the 2013 edition, the Spanish daily El
\nPais said that FILIT, though it is at its first edition, is already the most
\nimportant eastern European literary festival. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
\nwrote that such an event, of true European manner, has never been held in
\nRomania thus far. This year at FILIT House the fans met a plethora of writers
\nfrom a variety of countries, and the organisation plans to open two more such
\nvenues. Lucian Dan Teodorovici is one of the initiators, and manages the
\nfestival: <\/p>\n
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We are talking about two new programs, Fantasy
\nHouse and Childhood House, each of them hosting events attended by Romanian
\nwriters. Another novelty is the way in which we will coordinate and gather
\ntogether the exhibitions the National Romanian Literature Museum of Iasi
\nalready offers. Casa Pogor, featuring four venues for exhibitions, will gather
\ntogether this year four different events under the same topic, and that is the
\nmain attraction for both writers and readers. For this year’s FILIT edition, we
\nhave laid out a Jewish museum, because Iasi had a rich history in terms of
\nJewish culture. At some point, in the early 20th century, roughly a
\nthird of the city’s population was Jewish. Then followed the tragedy that has
\nto be remembered and acknowledged, even today.<\/p>\n
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Let’s see now what Florin Lazarescu, one of the
\nfestival initiators, had to say about the atmosphere: <\/p>\n
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The simple fact that tens of thousands of
\npeople attended the event, the fact that the whole community is interested, is
\nextraordinary. Even last year, when a smaller version of the festival was held,
\nwe had 10,000 people in attendance. I believe that this is the greatest success
\nof FILIT, its educational character. This is a huge campaign for reading,
\nplenty of people see books differently after FILIT. I heard countless times
\nthat children did not read before the festival, but now they are buying their
\nown books. Because they came into contact with writers, they saw it was
\nspectacular. This year, for instance, we took one of the FILIT events to a high
\nschool in the county, and the teacher there called me and said that the
\nstudents are delighted to meet a writer, they said they had never seen a
\nwriter. In Iasi, for instance, we go to ten high schools, and we have already
\nhad specific requests, regarding the children’s preferences. Many of them even
\nbefriended the writers. For instance, they go on Skype with writers invited to
\nFILIT, they are organising events by themselves already.<\/p>\n
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The 5th edition of FILIT is under
\nthe High Patronage of the European Commission Mission to Romania. This is their
\nthird collaboration, after the 2014 and 2016 editions, which included
\nprofessional literary events for the purpose of promoting cultural diversity. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Iasi International Literature and Translation Festival has brought together writers, translators, publishers, booksellers, cultural managers and arts journalists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":161716,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44685],"tags":[44870,44869],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-161715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-of-culture","tag-filit","tag-iasi-international-literature-and-translation-festival"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n