The Iași International Festival of Literature and Translation (FILIT), taking place this year between the 4th and 8th of October, is announcing its fifth edition’s first guests: Svetlana Aleksievici, Nobel Prize laureate for literature in 2015, and Gao Xingjian, Nobel Prize laureate for literature in 2000.
FILIT’s fifth edition brings forth many other new elements as well. Apart from the well-known structure of the events (The FILIT evenings, Writers downtown – The FILIT House, The Poetry House, high school meetings etc.), this year 3 other types of events will be initiated: The Fantasy House (dedicated to fantasy literature), The Childhood House (dedicated to children’s literature) and The Apse House (in partnership with the Iași branch of the Romanian Writers’ Union).
Other important guest names are to be announced during the following weeks: Romanian and foreign writers, tranlators, editors, cultural managers as well as other cultural figures.
Svetlana Aleksievici was born on the 31st of May 1948 in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine. She is the Nobel Prize laureate for literature of the year 2015. Many of her books have been translated into Romanian, among which we count: War’s Unwomanly Face (2016), Secondhand Times (2016), Boys in Zinc (2016), Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster (2015), The Last Witnesses (2015).
Gao Xingjian was born on the 4th of January 1940 in Ganzhou, Jiangxi, China. He is a French writer and critic of Chinese origin, and the Nobel Prize laureate for literature of the year 2000. In 2017, the Romanian translations of two of his books are scheduled for release: Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather (short stories), and The Art of a Free Man (essays).
FILIT is a yearly project funded by the Iași County Council through the National Museum of Romanian Literature Iași, having reunited hundreds of renowned names of the international literary scene and tens of thousands of participants during its first 4 editions.