Ninth edition of Odessa International Literature Festival to be held in Bucharest

The ninth edition of the Odessa International Literature Festival will be hosted this year by Romania, with the event set to take place from February 22 to 25 at the Goethe-Institut Bucharest.

"Next month, Bucharest will host the Odessa International Literature Festival, a traditional literary event initiated in 2015 which, due to the war, has become a traveling project in the last two years: in 2023 it was held in Georgia, in Batumi, and this year it takes place in the capital of Romania," the organizers stated in a press release cited by Agerpres.

More exactly, the event will take place at the Goethe-Institut Bucharest (Calea Dorobanți 32).

Ukrainian writers Iia Kiva, Yuri Vynnychuk, and Vasyl Makhno, Philip Sands from the United Kingdom, Olivier Guez from France, Daniel Kehlmann and Norman Ohler from Germany, Karl-Markus Gauss from Austria, Ariane von Graffenried and Jonas Luscher from Switzerland, and Ilaria Gaspari from Italy will be available for literature enthusiasts in public readings and debates.

Also present will be leading names of contemporary Romanian literature, such as Nora Iuga, Dan Sociu, Nichita Danilov, and Radu Vancu. The latter will also give the opening speech.

In total, the program includes 19 events that will take place both in person and online. Topics discussed at this year's edition of the Literature Festival include the future of Europe, the freedom of the writer, writing, the power of words to fight against barbarism, and literary relations between the countries of the Black Sea region.

Ukrainian literature will be the focus of a reading on February 24, to mark two years since the outbreak of the war. On this occasion, poems by Ukrainian writers Viktoria Amelina and Maksym Kryvtsov, both deceased during the war, will also be read.

The festival's readings and debates will be conducted in English, Ukrainian, and Romanian, with translation. The event is free and open to the public.

(Photo source: International Literature Festival Odesa on Facebook)