For the first time in Iaşi, International Festival of Literature and Translation (FILIT) – 23-27 October 2013 – will be hosting the BOOKFEST Book Salon, a longstanding annual publishing event. Iaşi will join Bucharest, Cluj and Timișoara as part of the BOOKFEST network.
Between 25 and 27 October, in the Hall of Fallen Footsteps at the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University in Iaşi, the city’s inhabitants will be able to encounter the books available from Romania’s leading publishers and to take part in events featuring the authors attending FILIT, as well as the exhibitors’ special guests.
“The scheduling of the first annual Iaşi BOOKFEST Book Salon during the first annual Iaşi International Festival of Literature and Translation is firstly a serendipitous coincidence for the public, which will in this way have the opportunity to meet leading authors and their books in a setting worthy of a city that takes seriously its candidacy to the title of European Capital of Culture. Secondly, for us publishers, it will be an opportunity to see how book-lovers outside Bucharest react to events of this kind, which, unfortunately, we don’t find in other locations around the country. And thirdly, I hope it will be the beginning of a beautiful friendship between two events – BOOKFEST Iaşi and FILIT – which we all wish to see growing to become even more beautiful in the years to come,” declared Grigore ARSENE, president of the Romanian Publishers’ Association (AER), the organiser of BOOKFEST.
The BOOKFEST International Book Salon is a longstanding event organised by AER, under the aegis of the Federation of Romanian Publishers, the most important confederation in the Romanian publishing industry. Since its inaugural year in 2006, BOOKFEST has made its mark in the cultural world as an event that promotes reading and consumer access to quality publishing products. AER was founded in 1991 and is the main association for Romanian publishing industry professionals, bringing together publishing houses from every cultural sector.
“The BOOKFEST Book Salon will complement the FILIT concept by giving the public direct access to books during the period of the Festival. Such a salon is an essential ingredient in any celebration of the printed word. All the more so given that one of the major criteria on which we based our selection of foreign writers was access in Romanian to their books – all of them have had their work translated by major Romanian publishing houses, and their books will be available on their stands at BOOKFEST. Not least, via FILIT and BOOKFEST, Iaşi will have a very welcome autumn Book Salon,” said Dan Lungu, the FILIT manager and director of the Iaşi Museum of Romanian Literature.Dan LUNGU also added that the partnership demonstrates the importance and quality of the Iaşi International Festival of Literature and Translation.
“I am delighted that we have awoken the enthusiasm of prestigious partners, who wish to join us in the Festival’s inaugural year. It is a sign that FILIT was long overdue and will have a long life,” said Dan LUNGU.