Wednesday, the 16th of April 2025, the Iași International Festival of Literature and Translation (FILIT), in collaboration with ARTLIT (the Romanian Association for Literary Translators), will host an online CELA masterclass with the Romanian writer Filip Florian and Romanian translator Ioana Miruna Voiculescu, starting with 17.30 CET.
The CELA presentation The social status of the literary artist as a freelancer is part of the Literature as a social elevator series offered by FILIT&ARTLIT. All the participants who signed up for this online meeting will join a presentation followed by a free dialogue with the two guests, two experienced Romanian literary artists who have been working as freelancers and will share perspectives and advice on an independent career.
Freelance translators and writers are pretty rare, though both type of works require a significant amount of time and expertise. Miruna and Filip will talk about what they consider a success or a failure in this type of work, how they fit in the literary line of business and how they built their approach to work and to the artistic community so as to make a living; also about how freelance artists are seen by society and how can they establish themselves as legitimate artists.
Filip Florian is a Romanian writer. His first novel, “Degete mici” (2005), was awarded the Romanian Literary Romania’s Debut Prize, the Romanian National Union of Romanian Patrons’ Award of Excellence for debut novels and the Writers’ Union Award for best prose debut. In 2006, together with his brother Matei Florian, he published the novel “Băiuțeii”. “Zilele regelui” (2008), Filip Florian’s third novel, was awarded the Manuscriptum Prize by the National Museum of Romanian Literature and was named Book of the Year 2008 at the Colloquium on Contemporary Romanian Novels. He has received important European grants: DAAD Artists-in-Residence Berlin, Landis & Gyr and HALMA. Filip Florian’s books have been published in Romania by Polirom Publishing House, and abroad, translated in fifteen countries, by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (USA), Suhrkamp and Matthes & Seitz (Germany), Acantilado (Spain), Fazi (Italy), Magvető and Bookart (Hungary), Czarne and Amaltea (Poland), Didakta (Slovenia), Ciela and Panorama Plus (Bulgaria), Kalligram (Slovakia), University of Plymouth Press (UK), Animar (Egypt), Altin Bilek (Turkey), Bokvennen (Norway), Ili-Ili (Macedonia) and Heliks (Serbia). The novel “Toate bufnițele” was awarded the Best Book of the Year Award in the “Fiction” section at the 2nd edition of the Bun de Tipar Gala.
Ioana Miruna Voiculescu is a Romanian translator working with English and French. In seventeen years of experience as a freelancer, she has ventured into quite a few domains—from legal, financial or medical to literary and academic translation, editing, and some interpreting. She is responsible, among others, for the Romanian translations of Lucia Berlin’s short stories (“Manual pentru femei de serviciu” and “O seară în paradis”, Art, 2018&2024), and two chapters of “Film History: An Introduction by Kristin Thompson, David Bordwell and Jeff Smith” (Vellant, 2024). Ioana Miruna has been a member and supporter of ARTLIT (The Romanian Association of Literary Translators) since the association’s early days.
The masterclass is part of Connecting Emerging Literary Artists (CELA), a talent development project for the new generation of European literary voices across 11 different countries, supported by Creative Europe of the European Union.