Gabriela Adameșteanu
(România / Romania)
Gabriela Adameşteanu was born in 1942 in Târgu Ocna. Graduate of the Faculty of Letters. Until 1990, dictionary editor (for 19 years) and Romanian l.iterature editor (for 5 years). She was in charge of the 22 magazine (for 13 years) and its supplement Bucureştiul cultural – (for 7 years). Awarded the ”Hellman-Hammett” prize for journalism granted by Human Rights Watch (2002). Vicepresident (2000-2004) and then president of the Romanian PEN Centre (2004-2006). Member of the Latin Union Jury (2007-2009). Honorary president of the first edition of the Romanian Goncourt Award (2013). Chevalier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2014). Her novel Dimineaţă pierdută was turned into a play and staged by Cătălina Buzoianu at Bulandra Theatre, with an exceptional cast (December 1986 – February 1990), in a show that has become a classic.She has written four novels (Drumul egal al fiecărei zile, 1975; Dimineaţă pierdută 1984; Întâlnirea, 2003; Provizorat, 2010), two short prose volumes (Dăruieşte-ţi o zi de vacanţă, 1979; Vară-primăvară,1989), two volumes of journalism (Obsesia politicii, 1995; Cele două Românii, 2000), a volume of memoirs (Anii romantici, 2014) and two novels translated from the French (one in collaboration). Her prose books have been translated into 15 languages.
Iuri Andruhovici
(Ucraina / Ukraine)
Iuri Andruhovici was born in 1960 in Ivana Frankivsk (Ukraine). He studied in Lvov and Moscow (Maxim Gorky Literary Institute). Ever since 1982, he has been writing and publishing poems, founding, together with two other young writers (Oleksandr Irvanez and Viktor Neborak), the militant literary group Bu-Ba-Bu (Burlesk-Balagan-Bufoniada). He made his debut with a volume of poems, The Sky and the Squares (1985). The volume Center of the City came out in 1989, followed by Exotic Birds and Plants published two years later. He has continued to publish essays and numerous articles tackling topical issues, and his novels have become more and more popular with readers in Ukraine and abroad, as they have been translated in Poland, Canada, USA, Germany, Hungary, Austria, Russia and Finland. In 2001, at the age of 41, the Ukranian writer was granted the prestigious Herder Award. His novel Moscoviada was translated into Romanian and came out in 2010.
Oana Arion
România / Romania)
Oana Arion was born in 1979 in Bucharest. Graduate of “Mihail Sadoveanu” Theoretical High school, she opted for the Faculty of Law instead of the Faculty of Arts, and graduated in 2004. Although she has a BA degree in Law, the barely works in this field, preferring a bohemian lifestyle. Ultimul viking, the first volume of “Nemuritor” series came out in 2015. Although initially planned to be a self-sufficient book, the second volume followed one year later. Te voi găsi, Dincolo de timp and Prin cenuşă de visuri enjoy the readers’ appreciation and by the end of 2017 the series reached a total of five volumes, Pentru că eu sunt. Pentru că tu eşti ending this fantastic journey into the world of mythological creatures. In the summer of 2018, the author changed the key and published Fugi!, a dystopian thriller with a psychological flavour.
Simona Antonescu
(România / Romania)
Simona Antonescu was born in Galaţi in 1969 and spent her childhood in Ţintea, Prahova. After graduating from “Constantin Dobrogeanu Gherea” Highschool (now, “Nichita Stănescu” National College) from Ploiești, she attended the courses of the Faculty of Chemistry at the Bucharest Polytechnic Institute. She made her debut in 2015 with the novel Fotograful Curţii Regale, which won the Debut Contest of Cartea Românească and the Prize for the Debut Book of the Writers’ Union of Romania; shortlisted at the Festival du Premier Roman de Chambéry; it became a bestseller, published in a new edition in 2016, in the Top 10+ collection of Polirom. The following year, Simona Antonescu’s Darul lui Serafim was published by Cartea Românească, and in 2017 Hanul lui Manuc was published by Polirom. This novel was also published in a new edition in the Top 10+ collection of Polirom and was shortlisted for the National Prose Award of ”Ziarul de Iaşi” in 2018. Recently, Simona Antonescu has began publishing at Nemi Press – books for children the series Istoria povestită copiilor. In 2018, she published Povestea Otiliei Cazimir at Literary Museums of Iaşi Press.
Jean-Baptiste Aubert
(Franța / France)
Jean-Baptiste Aubert is a professor of French Language and Literature, author and musician. In 2014 his poetry collection Pandémonium – Pandaemonium (Bibliocratie, Paris) was published, and in 2017 his first novel, Onze ans – Eleven Years was published by Christophe Lucquin, Paris, a novel chosen in 2018 as winner of the 31st edition of the Festival du premier roman in Chambéry (France). Jazz and improvised music pianist, he has already launched four albums and performs in several music bands. He lives and works in Strasbourg. His first contacts with the Romanian public will take place at FILIT, at the invitation of the French Institute of Iaşi, in collaboration with the Chambéry festival. Both the literary dialogue with Simona Modreanu and the meeting with the authors at the festival contribute to the vivid representation of the French cultural present in Romania, and the International Festival of Literature and Translation of Iași becomes more and more known in the French literary milieus.
Lluís-Anton Baulenas
(Spania / Spain)
Lluís-Anton Baulenas was born in 1958 in Barcelona (Spain). He is a novelist, playwright and translator into the Catalan. He was awarded the main Catalan awards, including the Sant Jordi Award (2008), the most important one in the Catalan literature, the Ramon Llull Award (2005), the Prudenci Bertrana Award (2000), the Carlemany Award (1998). His literary works have been translated into more than 15 languages. Four of his novels have already been translated into Romanian. Pentru un sac de oase – For a Sack of Bones and Nasul lui Mussolini – Mussolini’s Nose appeared in 2010 at Meteor, translated by Oana-Dana Balas. Firul de argint – The Silver Thread (Meronia, 2009) and Fericirea – Happiness (Meteor, 2014) appeared in Maria-Sabina Draga Alexandru’s translation. Doamna cu macara – The Lady with a Crane is about to be published in 2019.
Mihai Buzea
(România / Romania)
Mihai Buzea was born in 1971. Graduate of the Faculty of Philology (1996), reporter for Academia Cațavencu (2005 – 2011), collaborator at Cațavencii and Dilema Veche magazines (since June 2011, June 2015, respectively). He published the novels Berile de Aur (2006, out of his own pocket) and Gastarbeiter (2017, Polirom). Hooked on history and travel, he fas become a cultural tourism ’maniac,’ which he eventually turned into his profession; he has been writing about forgotten ’splinters’ of the past and present, too tiny for grown-ups to see, too dirty for kids to hear. Tied by invisible threads to Cluj, Iaşi and Sibiu, he let himself told by these cities, which had nothing good to say about Mihai Buzea, unlike San Francisco, Paris, Budapest and Bucharest, which can always tell – and will tell really nasty episodes. In 2018, he published Povestea lui Vasile Pogor at Literary Museums of Iaşi Press.
Eduardo Caballero
(Spania / Spain)
Eduardo Caballero was born in 1968 in Madrid (Spain). He studied at the prestigious School of Letters of Madrid directed by Alejandro Gándara. He is the author of the books Another Name, Another Door (Crealite, 2014), Now that You Are No Longer (Crealite, 2015) and Chambers of the Heart (Crealite, 2016). Alt nume, altă ușă, a short story volume prefaced by Jesús Ferrero, has enjoyed favourable criticism in Spain and was published in Romania by Editura Univers in 2015. The prestigious literary magazine Dilemateca also translated and published the story Nu e absolut nimic, included in this book.
Ana Maria Caia
(România / Romania)
Ana-Maria Caia was born in 1980 at Neamț Monastery. She studied philosophy and she won a silver medal at the International Philosophy Olympics. She has written television and documentary film scripts, travel articles, reportages, stories about people, radio texts, a theatre play in French, speeches for politicians, electoral strategies, branded content, poems. In 2015 the fiction book Opt povestiri was published by Tandem Media Press.
Delia Calancia
(România / Romania)
Delia Calancia, storyteller, illustrator and children’s book writer, born in 2008, lives in Vaslui, is a 5th grade student and she spends her spare time reading, writing and drawing. At the age of nine, she published O zi din viaţa Deliei, which she illustrated with her own drawings, thus becoming the youngest Humanitas author. The volume is about the adventures of Delia and her wise friend Melcovici, about the teddy bears Berend and Vincent, about her writer and translator friends (Adina Popescu, Florin Bican, Ioana Bot, Ciprian Măceşaru, Ioana Nicolaie, T.O. Bobe, Gheorghe Florescu, Vali Florescu), the art museums she visited in the Netherlands, her stuffed toys, her favourite music, David Bowie and ice-cream T-shirts, dreams and illustrations put into drawings or words, about Van Gogh, Vermeer and Botero, about books, lots of books that appear in the volume. She had a permanent column, Delia’s Page in The Sassy Guide of Culture, in the last issues of the print edition. She collaborates with ”The Storytellers’ Order,” coordinated by Adina Popescu, a magazine which hosts many of her illustrations.
Iulian Ciocan
(Republica Moldova / Republic of Moldova))
Iulian Ciocan was born in 1968 in Chişinău, the Republic of Moldova. He is a prose writer, journalist and literary critic. Commentator of Free Europe radio station. Published novels: Înainte să moară Brejnev (Polirom, 2007; Czech edition in Dybbuk, 2009); Sasha Kozak’s Land (Tracus Arte, 2011; Slovak edition at Kalligram, 2015; French edition at Belleville, 2017); Iar dimineaţa vor veni ruşii (Polirom, 2015), Dama de cupă (Polirom, 2018). He published prose in magazines and anthologies from the United States of America, Germany, China, Czechia, Bulgaria, Belgium and Brazil. He was invited to New York, at the PEN World Voices festival (2011) and at Literature Night in Amsterdam (2016). In 2018 he published Povestea lui Nicolae Gane at Literary Museums of Iaşi Press.
Nicolae Coande
(România / Romania)
Nicolae Coande was born in 1962, in Osica de Sus, the county of Olt. Founding editor of the “SpectActor” magazine (2006). He is the producer and moderator of ”SpectActor Rendezvous,” a cultural event hosted since 2009 by Marin Sorescu National Theatre of Craiova, of the ”Theatre Poetry Sundays” (2010), organizer of ”Ion D. Sîrbu Colloquiums.” The latest cultural project he is involved in: ”The Poets and SpectActors of Craiova Meet” (since 2016). He has published ten books of poetry. He made his debut with the book of poems În margine (1995), awarded by the Writers’ Union of Romania. The most recent book of poems published: Plagiator. 1962 (2017). He published five journalism and essay publications. His latest essay book Dumnezeu poet și protector al lumii (Tracus Arte, 2016). He received two awards from the Writers’ Union of Romania (1995, 2003). The latest award: the “Radu Enescu” award of Familia magazine (2017). He was a writer in residence invited by German, Austrian, Swiss foundations: “Heinrich Böll” Fundation (Langenbroich, Köln), 2003-2004; “Künstlerdorf Schöppingen” Fundation (Münsterland), 2008; “quartier 21”, Vienna, 2014-2015; Château de Lavigny, Switzerland, 2017.
Mariana Codruț
(România / Romania)
Mariana Codruţ was born in 1956 at Prisăcani, the county of Iași. She has published several volumes of poetry, among which Măceşul din magazia de lemne (1982), Tabieturile nopţii de vară (1989), Existenţă acută (1994), Hiatus (2015). She is also the author of prose books, starting with the novel Casa cu storuri galbene (Polirom, 1997), a book of journalism, Românul imparţial (2011), and the translation of a work by J. Piaget, Reprezentarea lumii la copil (Cartier, 2005). Emil Brumaru, the most outstanding contemporary Romanian poet, considers her “a great poet and an exceptional character,” and Andrei Pleşu, speaking of her journalistic work, notes “the lofty clarity of style, the unspoilt sense of language and rectitude of spirit.”
Andrei Crăciun
(România / Romania)
Andrei Crăciun was born in 1983 in Târgoviște. He studied public administration, political sciences, the history of ideas and mentalities, Hebrew culture and civilization in Bucharest and Tel Aviv. He attended literature classes at Escuela de Escritores of Madrid. He is a journalist and a writer. He published a trilogy entitled Baricadele (I-III, 2014-2017), two books of poems (Poezii pentru acea necunoscută, Herg Benet, 2015; Toată poezia lumii, Hyperliteratura, 2017), two short prose books (Pălăria albastră și alte povestiri, Herg Benet, 2015; Îndurabile, Herg Benet, 2017) and a poem-novel (Aleea Zorilor, Polirom, 2017). Pălăria albastră și alte povestiri was granted the best prose book of the year 2015 award by Tiuk! magazine. The Dawn Alley was shortlisted for the Young Writer of the Year award at the Young Writers’ Gala in 2018. In 2018, he published Povestea lui Ion Creangă at Literary Museums of Iaşi Press.
Oliviu Crâznic
(România / Romania)
Oliviu Crâznic was born in 1978. He is a writer, anthologist, journalist. In 2010, he published the novel …Şi la sfârşit a mai rămas coşmarul. Subsequently he published numerous stories and novelettes (most of which are comprised in the volume Ceasul fantasmelor, 2015), being granted several prizes, including one awarded by the European Science Fiction Society. His work has been published in various anthologies and magazines (including Apostrof, a magazine of the Writers’ Union of Romania, and in several foreign publications) alongside important names in world literature. His name is mentioned in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and his works have been the topic of essays signed by doctoral students and PhD holders. He has been invited to speak to the students of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures of the Univiversity of Bucharest or to the students of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures of “Dimitrie Cantemir” Christian University, he participated in the scientific session of the Romanian Academy – the Division of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science and juried (together with Associate Professor PhD. A.M. Negrilă) a literary contest organised by the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures of “Dimitrie Cantemir” Christian University. He participated, as a host of the evening dedicated to Sci-Fi literature, in the “International Literary Festival of Bucharest” and as a guest of TV or radio boradcast cultural shows, as well as cultural events.
Augustin Cupșa
(România / Romania)
Augustin Cupșa was born in 1980. He made his debut in 2006 with the novel Perforatorii (the award of Ramuri magazine, the award of Mozaicul magazine, nominated for the Euridice award). He also published two short prose volumes, Profesorul Bumb și Macii suedezi (nominated at the Young Writers’ Gala 2011) and Marile bucurii și marile tristeți, translated entirely into Serbian (Velike radosti i velike tuge). As a screenwriter, he made his debut with Trenul către București pleacă de la linia 3 (HBO Romania award), he collaborated at the adaptation of the series “În Derivă” (produced by HBO Romania 2011, 2012) and at the short films Ceață (Grand Prix du Jury, ”Premiers Plans” International Festival, Angers, Debut Prize ”Message to man” Sankt Petersburg IFF) and Fructe necoapte (in post-production). The novel Așa să crească iarba pe noi was published by Humanitas in 2017.
Nichita Danilov
(România / Romania)
Nichita Danilov was born in 1952 at Muşeniţa Climăuți, Suceava; he is a graduate of the Faculty of Economics and of the Post-highschool of Architecture, Iași. Debut in 1979 in Dialogue magazine. Editorial debut in 1980 with the volume of poems Fântâni carteziene (volume granted the Writers’ Union award). Of his published poetry books: Câmp negru (1982); Arlechini la marginea câmpului (1985); Poezii (1987); Deasupra lucrurilor, neantul (1990) and Mirele orb (1995), Recviem pentru țara pierdută (2016), or the one author anthology Nouă variațiuni pentru orgă (1999); he also published several volumes of short stories or novels, of which: Nevasta lui Hans (1996), Tălpi. Șotronul (2004), Mașa și Extraterestrul (2005), Locomotiva Noimann (2008) or Ambasadorul invizibil (2010); he also authored several volumes of political pamphlets and literary portraits. Present in numerous anthologies in the country and abroad. His poetry has been translated in Hungary, Czechia, Estonia, Spain, France, the USA, England. In 1995, he was granted the Soros Foundation Award for poetry. He is a member of the Writers’ Union of Romania and of the PEN Club. He has been an economist, proofreader, professor, museographer, editor, copy editor (Convorbiri literare), head of the Culture department (Monitorul de Iași), director (Luceafărul Children’s and Youth Theatre, Iași; ”Mihai Ursachi” House of Culture), literary secretary (”Vasile Alecsandri” National Theatre, Iași).
Luca Dinulescu
(România / Romania)
Luca Dinulescu was born in 1979 in Bucharest. He is a graduate of the Faculty of Cinematography and Television, Media University, Film production department, he holds a BA in Film and Television Production of the Hyperion Faculty of Cinematography. He has expanded his knowledge and skills as: Senior Copywriter Springer & Jacoby Romania; facebook/twitter/G+ account manager for Nemira by creating blog and newsletter content, coordinator of the Nemira monthly reading club; journalist at Academia Cațavencu; collaborator of Radio Romania Cultural; ProTV screenwriter in residence; coordinator of the “Dansez pentru tine” – ”Dancing with the Stars” screenwriters’ team (first two editions). As a publicist, he also worked as a correspondent for the Romanian language publication in America “Sacramento Romanian Magazine.” He participated in the scriptwriting and dramatic elements workshop ”How To Say It” in Sofia, Bulgaria. He published a volume of short prose Sir Sugismund, Polirom, 2006 ; Prostituția României (novel, Tracus Arte, 2016); Istoria alternativă a literaturii române în benzi desenate, (Univers, 2017). His work is included in the volumes Poesis International (2012), Moş Crăciun & Co., omologat cel mai rapid roman din lume în „Cartea Recordurilor”, Santa Claus and Co., the World’s Fastest Novel in the ”Book of Records” (Art, 2012), in the BEST OF: Proza scurtă a anilor 2000 (2013). In 2015, he was the winner of the short prose contest “Tomiseisme” and he is shortlisted for the TIFF-HBO 2005 feature film scriptwriting contest with the script That Jazz Again. He was granted a FILIT residence (Iaşi, 2018).
Svetlana Dorosheva
(Ucraina, Israel / Ukraine, Israel)
Sveta Dorosheva was born in Ukraine and now she lives in Israel with her husband and their three children. She is a writer and illustrator. She has worked as an interpreter, copywriter, art manager and creative manager in advertising. Since she moved to Israel in 2009, she has been working as an illustrator, illustrating her own two books. To date, her first book, The Nenuphar Book / Cartea din nufăr has been published in Russia, Romania, Japan, and the US. The book was nominated for the National Bestseller Award in Russia in 2016. Her second book, How to Handle a Child / În mintea copiilor follows the same trajectory and it has already been released in Russia and Romania. As an illustrator, Sveta has worked on a lot of books, many of which have been shortlisted for various international illustration awards.
Andrei Dósa
(România / Romania)
Andrei Dósa was born in 1985 in Brașov. He published the volumes: Când va veni ceea ce este desăvârşit, Tacus Arte, 2011; American Experience, Cartea Românească , 2013; Nada, Pandora M, 2015; Adevăratul băiat de aur, Max Blecher, 2017; Ierbar, Polirom, 2018. He has translated a number of books from the English and Hungarian. In 2017 he was nominated one of the ten writers of New Europe Voices, a programme coordinated by the Literature Across Frontiers platform. Currently, he is an editor of the Poesis International magazine.
Selma Dragoș
(România / Romania)
Selma Dragoș was born in 1979 in Cluj-Napoca. She graduated from the School of Drama within UNATC, in 2008, holding a BA in Theatre Staging. She is currently attending the Drama Writing Master classes at UAT – Târgu Mureş and is involved in a variety of activities that combine theater and psychology under the same idea: creating artificial situations that can bring about more clarity. As a playwright and director, we find her in: Comedia Eroilor (2006), Bătrânii (2008), The perfect high (2013), Dumnezeu îți trimite bomboane (2013), Poveste de iarnă (shadow creator and handler, 2015), De ce eu? (production, one-woman show, dramatization by Ana Cucuta after the novel De ce fierbe copilul în mămăligă, by Aglaya Veteranyi). She wrote scripts for Media Pro Pictures, 2006 (Un pas înainte); Indigo Films, 2008 (Nimeni nu-i perfect). She was granted a FILIT residence (Iaşi, 2018).
Domnica Drumea
(România / Romania)
Domnica Drumea was born in 1979 in Râmnicu-Vâlcea. She made her debut in 2004 with the volume Crize (Vinea). The volume was granted the debut award of the Writers’ Association of Bucharest. In 2009, she published the Not for Sale volume at Cartea Românească. In 2014, she published Vocea at Charmides. Her poems have been translated into Swedish, French, German, Russian, Czech.
Teodor Dună
(România / Romania)
Teodor Dună was born in 1981 in Tâncăbești, the county of Ilfov. He graduated from the Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest. He has published the volumes: trenul de treieşunu februarie, Vinea (2002 – Mihai Eminescu National Award, Opera Prima, Botoșani); catafazii, Vinea (2005); De-a viul, Cartea Românească (2010); Der lärm des fleisches (translation by Georg Aescht), Edition Solitude, Germany (2012); Obiecte umane, Cartea Românească (2015 – Poetry Book of the year 2015 award, Young Writers’ Gala) and Kirilă (Tracus Arte, 2017). In 2010, he was granted a 6 month scholarship at Akademie Schloss Solitude (Germany). Selections of his poems have been translated into the French, English, Swedish, Spanish, Bulgarian, Hungarian.
Carmen Firan
(România / Romania)
Carmen Firan, poet and fiction writer, has published more than twenty five books including novels, short stories, essays and poetry in her native Romania and in the United States. Her most recent novel The Lost Shadow came out this year at Polirom. Since 2000 she has been living in New York. Among her recent books and publications are Interviews and Encounters (Poems and Dialogue with Nina Cassian, Sheep Meadow Press, 2016), Inferno (SD Press, 2014), Rock and Dew (Sheep Meadow Press, 2013), Words and Flesh, (selected works of prose, Talisman Publishers, 2008), The Second Life (short stories, Columbia University Press, 2005), The Farce (novel, Spuyten Duyvil, 2003), In the Most Beautiful Life (Umbrage Editions, 2002), and three collections of poetry: Afternoon With An Angel, The First Moment After Death, and Accomplished Error. In 2006, she edited Born in Utopia: An Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Romanian Poetry (Talisman House), and in 2008 she coordinated the anthology Stranger at Home. Contemporary American Poetry with an Accent (Numina Press, Los Angeles). Her translated works appear in magazines, anthologies, and books in France, Israel, Sweden, Germany, England, Ireland and Poland. She is a member of the Pen American Center and the Poetry Society of America, of the editorial board of Interpoezia (New York), and she runs Intercultural Poetry Series at Cornelia Street Cafe, in the Village, New York.
© Jost Van Der Broek
Jonathan Franzen
(Statele Unite ale Americii / United States of America)
Jonathan Franzen was born in 1959 in Western Springs, Illinois (the USA). He is one of the most outstanding writers in the US. He grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. He studied German language and literature at Swarthmore College and then at Freie Universität in Berlin as a Fulbright Scholar. He worked in the Seismology Laboratory of the Department of Earth Physics and Planetary Sciences at Harvard. He is the author of several novels Al 27-lea oraş / The Twentyseventh City (1988; Polirom, 2007), Strong otion (1992), Corecţii / The Corrections (2001, Polirom, 2017), distinguished with the prestigious National Book Award and with James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Libertate / Freedom (2010; Polirom, 2011, 2016) and Puritate / Purity (2015; Polirom, 2016). He also published two volumes of essays, How to Be Alone (2002) and Farther Away (2012), and a memoir, The Discomfort Zone (2006). He is a permanent collaborator of The New Yorker magazine and, since 2012, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Cristian Fulaș
(România / Romania)
Cristian Fulaș was born in 1978, in Caracal. He graduated from the Faculty of Letters, then Postgraduate studies in Literary Theory. He made his debut in 2015 with the novel Fâşii de ruşine (Gestalt Books; Observator cultural Award for Debut; ”Liviu Rebreanu” Colloquium Award; Accente magazine award; nominated for the USR Prize for debut; nominated for the Book of the Year Award of Ziarul de Iaşi). In 2015 he published Jurnal de debutant (Tracus Arte). In 2016, După plâns (nominated for the Book of the Year Award of Ziarul de Iaşi). In 2017, Polirom published the short stories Cei frumoşi şi cei buni. He translated approximately fifty titles into English, Italian and French. Among them, we mention: Visul lui Machiavelli / Machiavelli’s Dream (Christophe Bataille), Vorbeşte-le despre bătălii, regi şi elefanţi / Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants (Mathias Enard), Mituri clasice / Classical Myths (Jenny March), Aplicaţii clinice ale psihoterapiei / Clinical Applications of Psychotherapy (Gestalt Gianni Francesetti, Michela Gecele, Jan Roubal), Igitur. O aruncare de zaruri / Igitur – A Throw of the Dice (Stéphane Mallarmé), Busola / The Compass (Mathias Enard), O scurtă istorie a beției / A Short History of Drunkenness (Mark Forsyth). In 2018, he published Povestea lui Dosoftei at Literary Museums of Iaşi Press.
Tudor Ganea
(România / Romania)
Tudor Ganea was born in 1983 in Bucureşti and he is an architect. He made his debut in 2016 with the novel Cazemata (Polirom), for which he received the “Young novelist of 2016” award, at the Young Writers’ Gala, the debut award of the Observator cultural magazine, the “Nepotu’ lui Thoreau” award (debut) and he was nominated for the Writers’ Union Awards (debut). He appears in the European First Novel Festival antology (Budapest, 2017). He has also published two novels at Polirom: Miere – Honey (2017, distinguished with the “Young novelist of 2017” award and Porci – Pigs (2018). Fragments of his novels have been translated into Hungarian, Turkish, Italian, French, Spanish and English. In 2018 he published Povestea lui Mihail Sadoveanu at Literary Museums of Iaşi Press.
Diana Geacăr
(România / Romania)
Diana Geacăr was born in 1984 in Târgovişte. She is a writer and translator. She published the volumes of poetry bună, eu sunt diana și sunt colega ta de cameră (Vinea, 2005, Mihai Eminescu national award for debut), Frumusețea bărbatului căsătorit (Vinea, 2009, ”Marin Mincu” award) and Dar noi suntem oameni obișnuiți (Cartea Românească, 2017). She published poems and short prose in literary magazines (Poesis International, Timpul, Literomania, Levure littéraire, Crevice, Subcapitol ș.a.) and in anthologies (Exerciții de neclintire. Antologia poeților laureați ai Premiului Național de Poezie Mihai Eminescu – OPUS PRIMUM 1999-2017, Max Blecher Publishing House, 2017; Tu, înainte de toate. O antologie a poeziei contemporane de dragoste, Paralela 45, 2017, coord. Cosmin Perța, and others). In 2009, she participated in the third edition of the poetry translation workshop Re:verse, organised in Szigliget, Hungary, by József Atilla Circle Literary Association of Young Writers (JAK). She translated poems from English for the Crevice online magazine and the contemporary international poetry anthology Portrete de frontieră/ GrenzPortraits/Frontier Portraits (Klak Verlag, Berlin, 2017, coord. Rodica Draghincescu), where she is present also as an author, and many contemporary literature books from English and French. She is a permanent collaborator of Crevice magazine.
Sylvie Germain
(Franța / France)
Sylvie Germain was born in 1954 in Châteauroux (France). She studied philosophy at Sorbonne (Master of Philosophy and Aesthetics in 1978) and Nanterre (Ph.D in Philosophy and Aesthetics, 1981). After various jobs as a librarian and teacher between 1977 and 1993, she has devoted herself exclusively to literary work. Since 1984, she has published about 20 novels, 15 essays on spirituality, cities and artists, painting and photography. She has been granted a number of significant awards, among which the Femina Award (Jours de colère, 1989) and the ”Goncourt des lyceens” Award (Magnus, 2005). She was elected member of the Belgian Royal Academy (2013) and honorary president for the ”Marguerite Duras” Award. The following novels were published in Romanian: Cartea nopților / The Book of Nights (Univers, 1998), Zile de mânie / Days of Wrath (Pandora M, 2003) and Întâmplări dintr-o viață / Scenes of One’s Life (Nemira, 2014).
Adela Greceanu
(România / Romania)
Adela Greceanu was born in 1975 in Sibiu, writer and journalist at Radio Romania Cultural, debuted in 1997 with Titlul volumului meu, care mă preocupă atât de mult… (poetry), Eminescu Publishing House. She won the “Cristian Popescu” Grand Prize and the Writers’ Association Award from Sibiu. She continued with the poetry volumes Domnişoara Cvasi, Vinea, 2001, Înţelegerea drept în inimă, Paralela 45, 2004, Și cuvintele sunt o provincie, Cartea Românească, 2014, volume for which she received the poem prize of the Observator cultural magazine and the special mention for “The best book of the year” at the Romanian Book Industry Gala. The critique Marin Mincu published in 1998 the critical anthology called Poezia română actuală. De la Adela Greceanu la Leonid Dimov – Romanian poetry today. From Adela Greceanu to Leonid Dimov. In 2008, she published the novel Mireasa cu şosete roşii, at Polirom. In 2018, she won with the story Dar dacă the first edition of Boccace Award, granted to a Romanian story by the French association “Tu connais la nouvelle?”. In 2018, she published Povestea lui Vasile Alecsandri at Literary Museums of Iași Press.
Előd Benjámin Horváth
(România / Romania)
Előd Benjámin Horváth (Benji Horváth) was born in 1988 in Târgu Mureș. Poet, writer, slammer, translator, editor of the Hungarian literary magazine Helikon (https://www.helikon.ro/) from Cluj-Napoca, workshops and cultural events organizer. He is a member of the Beatwándor audio-visual-poetic band. He studied philosophy and history of religions at the Eötvös Lóránd University in Budapest. He has four volumes of poetry published: A cseplini díva / Diva cepliniană, 2009; Beatcore, 2015; Az amnézia útja / Drumul amneziei, 2016; A dicsőséges Európa / Europa glorioasă, 2018. He published poetry, prose, essays, interviews and reviews in numerous periodicals in Romania and Hungary. He published in the anthology liniște, pace, perversiuni, heppiend: tineri poeți maghiari din Transilvania (Max Blecher, 2016; translated by Andrei Dósa, coordinated by Ștefan Baghiu).
Mihai Ignat
(România / Romania)
Mihai Ignat was born in 1967 in Brașov. BA, MA and PhD studies at the Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest. He is an associate professor at the Faculty of Letters at Transilvania University in Brasov. Poet and playwright. He debuted as a poet with the collective volume Tablou de familie – Family Portrait and with the poem plaque Klein, in 1995. There followed the poetry volumes Eu, Klein spuse, Poeme in doi, kleinpoeme, Cangrena e un animal de casa, Klein spuse Klein, Klein reloaded și Poate noaptea a și-nceput. In 2004, he debuted as a playwright by staging Crize at BBC Radio, London. He was a winner of Uniter Competition, of the National Dramaturgy Competition of the Ministry of Culture and the Comedy Theater competition, with numerous performances in the country and abroad, with parts translated into English, German, Czech, Polish, Russian, Bulgarian, Spanish and Greek. He published theatre volumes Patru cepe degerate, Crize, Meserii si fundaturi, Black Sitcom, Patru piese intr-un act, Fermoare, nasturi și capse, Toți privesc înainte and Ei sunt printre noi.
Florina Ilis
(România / Romania)
Florina Ilis was born in 1968 in Olcea, Bihor county. She debuted with a book of haikus Haiku şi caligrame (2001). It was followed shortly by the novels: Coborârea de pe cruce (2001), Chemarea lui Matei (2002), Cruciada copiilor (2005), distinguished with the Romanian Literary Prize and of the “Anonimul” Foundation Book of the Year 2005, the Award for Prose of Cuvântul magazine, the Award for Prose of Radio România Cultural, the Award for Prose of the Romanian Writers’ Union, “Ion Creangă” Award of the Romanian Academy. She also published: the novel Cinci nori coloraţi pe cerul de răsărit (2006), also translated into Italian, theatre volume Lecția de aritmetică (2006) and the novel Viețile paralele (2012), distinguished with the award for Prose of the Writers’ Union of Romania – Cluj-Napoca Branch, Radio România Cultural Award, the Award of the Romanian Novel Colloquy from Alba-Iulia. She is a member of the Writers’ Union of Romanian and of Pen Club International. In 2018, she published Povestea lui Mihai Eminescu at the Literary Museums of Iași Press.
Viorel Ilișoi
(România / Romania)
Viorel Ilișoi was born in 1968 in Ringhilești, Botoșani county; journalist and writer. He wrote more than half of his life for the following newspapers: Atitudinea, PressOne, Viața liberă, Timpul, Național, Cotidianul, Jurnalul Național. The volume Cele mai frumoase reportaje (2017) gathers literary reports well received by readers and critics; there follows Alte reportaje frumoase, an anthology that will be published. The life of a journalist was told in texts published on his own website and these, gathered in the volume Strălucitor. Întâmplări gazetărești are waiting for a publisher. A volume of interviews with writers is waiting its turn. He also published the volume Necunoscutul Mihai Codreanu (2014), something between a reportage and literary history, a personal vision of the greatest Romanian sonetist. The writer’s favorite theme is his childhood in the orphanage, reflected in reports, prose and poetry published on his own site, in the opuscule Sărut-mâna, mama mea (2016) and in collective volumes (Cartea Jijiei, Cartea copilăriilor). He debuted as a poet at the age of 17 in Luceafărul, he abandoned poetry for a long time and returned to it now, in the old age, writing poems of love on his website.
Eugen Istodor
(România / Romania)
Eugen Istodor was born in 1965 in Bicaz, Neamț county. He is a journalist, graduate of the Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest. Doctor of Sociology, with a research on humor coordinated by Professor Vintilă Mihăilescu. Between 1990 and 2011, he was a senior editor of the publication Cațavencu, weekly paper, becoming Academia Caţavencu since 1992 and signatory of the interview and reportage columns. Between 2011 and 2014, he was a reporter at the weekly Cațavencii. He collaborated with Cotidianul (2004-2009) and with Dilema veche (since 1998). He is founder of the section Perspektiva on HotNews.ro. He is an associate professor at the Department of Communication Sciences at the Faculty of Letters. He published Vieţaşii de pe Rahova (2005), Cartea vieţii mele (2007), Dicționarul ideilor fixe (2009), 101 cărți românești de citit într-o viață (2012).
Catherine Lovey
(România / Romania)
Catherine Lovey is a French-language writer, born in Switzerland in 1967, in the mountains of the Valais canton. She studied international relations and later on criminology. She worked as a journalist in the written press, specializing in economics and finance. Her first novel, L’homme interdit, appeared at Zoe in 2005, talks about a businessman whose wife has disappeared and has to take care of the children and the home. Later on, there appeared Cinq vivants pour un seul mort (2008), Un roman russe et drôle (2010), and Monsieur et Madame Rivaz (2016), translated into Romanian at Școala Ardeleană by Florica Ciodaru-Courriol (Domnul și doamna Riva, 2017). A short essay (Și dacă timpul nu ar mai fi bani?) appeared in French and German at the Der Gesunde Menschenversand and on the www.essaisagites.ch website. The writer publishes blog articles, original chronologies, and begins to write texts for the theater, where she mostly uses feminine voices: Revenantes, Texte pour une comédienne seule, Chute de guerrier.
Teodora Matei
(România / Romania)
Teodora Matei was born in 1971 in Ploiești. Literary pseudonym of Elena Teodora Mateiu. Her literary debut was with the nuvella Stăpânul castelului (2012, Nautilus magazine). Collaboration with CPSF, Gazeta cărților, Revista bibliotecarilor prahoveni, Argos, Fantastica, Ficțiuni.ro, Gazeta SF, Helion Online, Nautilus, Rânduri cu dichis, Revista de suspans. She published SF volumes – Omul-flutur trilogy (in collaboration with Lucian-Dragoș Bogdan): Omul-fluture (2015), Maya (2016), Sindromul Charlotte (2017); Stăpânul castelului (2016), Fetița-de-diamant (2016), Aripile tatălui (2017), O noapte la castel (2018) –, crime – Cel-ce-simte (2016), În mintea comisarului (2017), Lumânări vii (2018) and romance – Tot timpul din lume (2017).
Marin Mălaicu-Hondrari
(România / Romania)
Marin Mălaicu-Hondrari was born in 1971 in Sîngeorz-Băi. He is a writer and translator. He published Zborul femeii pe deasupra bărbatului (poems, 2004; Writers’ Union Award, Cluj-Napoca Branch), Cartea tuturor intenţiilor (2006), Apropierea (novel, 2010), La două zile distanţă (poems 2011; Award of the magazines Poesis international and Transilvania) and Lunetistul (novel, 2013; Bistriţa Literature Prize; nomination in the Radio Romania Cultural Awards, Prose Section, nominations at the National Prose Award of Ziarul de Iaşi and the Observatorul cultural Magazine Awards. He wrote, in collaboration with the director Tudor Giurgiu, the script after the novel Apropierea.
Nicoleta Nap
(România / Romania)
Nicoleta Nap studied Philosophy and Law at the University in Cluj-Napoca, and spent 12 years working in journalism in the same city. She was also a lead singer in a punk rock band. From 2013 she lives in Bucharest. ușor desincronizat, aproape imperceptibil published at Max Blecher in 2017 is her first (debut) poetry book. She translated from English for Poesis international.
Cristina Nemerovschi
(România / Romania)
Cristina Nemerovschi was born in 1980 in Bucharest. She graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Bucharest and has an MA at the same Faculty with a Philosophy dissertation on Mathematics. She debuted in 2010 with the novel Sânge satanic, which has been compared by literary critics with cult works by some authors, such as J.D. Salinger, Henry Miller, Irvine Welsh, Chuck Palahniuk, Bret Easton Ellis or Anthony Burgess. She was awarded the Prize Tiuk! for debut, with the title Book of the Year 2010, Book of the Year 2011 for the second edition, she was chosen among the finalists of Premiers Romans En Lecture. There followed 14 novels, a part being grouped as trilogies, all of which have both public and critical enthusiastic receptions. The author’s prose was included in numerous anthologies, both Romanian and international. The novel Păpușile brough her a nomination at the Young Writers’ Gala – The best novelist of 2014. The novels Sânge satanic, Pervertirea, Ani cu alcool și sex, Rezervația unicornilor, nymphette_dark99, Ultima vrăjitoare din Transilvania, Vicky, nu Victoria, Cum a ars-o Anghelescu o lună ca scriitor de succes, Păpușile, Rockstar, Zilele noastre care nu vor mai fi niciodată, Dresoarea have inspired every artistic expression: poetry, plays, visual arts, music. Currently she is working at the novel Răzvrătiții and the fantasy series Cronicile fetei lup.
Radu Nițescu
(România / Romania)
Radu Nițescu was born in 1992 in Bucharest. He debuted in 2012 with the volume of poetry gringo, at Casa de Pariuri Literare. Four years later he published Dialectica urșilor, at Max Blecher, a volume that received the Award for Poetry in Romanian offered by the Nepotu’ lui Thoreau Reading Club. He had readings in several cities and attended several poetry festivals such as Poets in Transylvania, Poezia e la Bistrița, Sofia: Poetics, selections of his poems being translated into English, German, Bulgarian, Turkish and Hebrew. At the beginning of 2016, he was one of the guests of the Romanian Cultural Institute at Literaturwerkstatt Berlin and in November 2017 he had a reading at the TUYAP Book Fair in Istanbul. He collaborated with Poesis international, New Zone, SUBCAPITOL.
Roland Orcsik
(România / Romania)
Roland Orcsik was born in 1975 in Becse (Serbia). Since 1992 he lives in Szeged (Hungary). He works at the University of Szeged in the Institute of Slavonic Studies. Orcsik is one of the editors of Hungarian literary monthly Tiszatáj. He writes poetry, criticism, and translates from a number of ex-Yugoslavian languages into Hungarian. His research focuses on Hungarian and Ex-Yugoslav literary contacts. So far he has published four volumes of poetry, and his book Mahler downloaded is translated into Serbian. Rule of Thirds (2015) is his last published collection. His first novel was published in 2016 under the title Phantomcommando (the Romanian translation will come out in october 2018, the Serbian in 2019). He received prestigious literary prizes for his works which are translated in Czech, English, French, Croatian, German, Greek, Romanian, Slovenian, Spanish, and Serbian languages. He plays on his „anti-instruments” in the psychodelic prostitute punk band Lajka.
Florin Partene
(România / Romania)
Florin Partene was born in 1974 in Maieru, Bistrița-Năsăud county. He debuted with the volume Reverenţa, Vinea, Bucharest, 2007. He received the “Mihai Eminescu” – Opera Prima, National Poetry Prize, 2007. He also published the volume of poems, Liber de causis, Charmides, Bistrița, 2013. He is present with lyrics in more anthologies.
Adelin Petrișor
(România / Romania)
Adelin Petrișor was born in 1975 in Buzău. He is one of the most well-known war journalists in Romania. He began his career in 1994 at 2M+ radio station. He worked at Tele 7abc, TVR, Antena 1 and Realitatea TV. He is currently a special correspondent of public television. He transmitted from Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Israel, Algeria, Albania, Egypt, Tunisia, Syria and other conflict areas. In 2006 he did a coverage in the American prison, Guantanamo. During the US offensive in Iraq in 2003, he was the only Romanian correspondent to transmit from Baghdad. Over the years, he has interviewed personalities such as Yasser Arafat, Ehud Barak, Benjamin Netanyahu, Valentino Rossi, Ayatollah Mohammad Fadlallah, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. He was awarded APTR’s Grand Award in 2003, the Best coverage Award in 2007 and the Political Documentary Award in 2009. In 2012, he took part in the International Photography Awards (Los Angeles) with five photos taken in North Korea, being among the finalists at the “Discovery of the Year” Grand Award and winning the “Editorial Non-Pro” Section. The documentary North Korea, nothing to be envied, played at TIFF in 2012. In 2013, he was chosen for the official selection at the ASTRA Film Festival Sibiu, one of the most important documentary festivals in Eastern Europe. He published Războaiele mele (2010), the photo album Coreea de Nord, un lagăr cât o țară (2012) and Țara cu un singur gras (2013) at Polirom.
Ioan Es. Pop
(România / Romania)
Ioan Es. Pop was born in 1958 in Vărai, Maramureş county. Among the published books: Ieudul fără ieşire, Cartea Românească, 1994, The awards for debut of the Romanian Writers’ Union and the Republic of Moldavia; Porcec, Cartea Românească, 1996; Pantelimon 113 bis, Cartea Românească, 1999, the Romanian Academy Award, Romanian Writers’ Union Award, The Award for Poetry of the city of Bucharest; Petrecere de pietoni, Paralela 45, 2003, Romanian Writers’ Union Award; Unelte de dormit, Cartea Românească, 2011, “Poetry Book of the Year 2011” Award, offered by the National Science and Art Foundation in Bucharest; Radio România Cultural Award; the Bucharest Writers’ Association Award; 1983. Marş/2013. Xanax, Charmides, 2013; Arta fricii, Charmides, 2016, “Writer of the month of July 2016” Award of USR – Iaşi Branch. He was the winner of the 2009 Niram Art Awards in Madrid. The Swedish Radio nominated him for the Poet of the Month of August 2010. The Union of Writers of the Republic of Moldavia awarded him, in 2012, with the “Spring Day for European Poets” Award. In 2016, Venice, Italy, he was awarded the Ciampi Valigie Rosse Award for the volume Un giorno ci svegliamo vivi.
Bogdan Răileanu
(România / Romania)
Bogdan Răileanu was born in 1980 in Buftea. He graduated from the Faculty of Journalism and Communication Sciences in Bucharest. In 2015 he debuted in iocan magazine. In 2017, the short stories volume Tot spațiul dintre gândurile mele appeared at Polirom, nominated at the debut awards of Observatorul Cultural and the iocan Award in 2018. In May 2018, Humanitas published the novel Dinții ascuțiți ai binelui. He works in an advertising agency in Bucharest. In 2018, he published Povestea lui Costache Negruzzi at Literary Museums of Iași Press.
Adina Rosetti
(România / Romania)
Adina Rosetti is born in 1979 in Braila. In 2001 she graduated from a Faculty of Economics, then she attended a post-graduate course in journalism. Since 2004 she has worked as a journalist for several publications: Dilema Veche, Dilemateca, Time Out București, ELLE Romania, Unica, Esquire, BeWhere, Omnivor, Formula As, CR FashionBook #2. She received the award for The Young Journalist of 2007 (the Culture section) offered by Freedom House. She published two volumes for adults: Deadline (novel, Curtea Veche Publishing, 2010, 2011, translated into French, Mercure de France, 2013) and De zece ori pe buze (short prose, Curtea Veche Publishing, 2015). Adina Rosetti is also a well-known writer of children’s literature: Domnișoara Poimâine și joaca de-a Timpul (illustrations by Cristiana Radu, 2014, 2015, 2016), De ce zboară vrăjitoarele pe cozi de mătură (illustrations by Cristiana Radu, 2016, 2017) and Cartea Curajului (Illustrations by Alexia Udrişte, 2016), Povestea kendamei pierdute (illustrations by Irina Dobrescu, 2018), Aiurea-n Tramvai (illustrations by Livia Coloji, 2018). She is a founding member of De Basm – The Writers’ Association for Children and Adolescents.
Andra Rotaru
(România / Romania)
Andra Rotaru was born in 1980 in București. She is the founder of Crevice magazine. She published Într-un pat, sub cearșaful alb (Vinea, 2005, Fractalia, 2015), awarded with “Mihai Eminescu” Prize – Opera Prima, the Writers’ Association Award in Bucharest, „Tudor Arghezi” Award, „Iustin Panța” Award and „Ion Vinea” Award, En una cama bajo la sábana blanca (translation of the debut volume into Spanish, 2008), Ținuturile sudului (Paralela 45, 2010), Lemur (Cartea Românească, 2012). Lemur was awarded the „Young poet of the year” Award at the Young Writers’ Gala (2013). The volume is published in America at Action Books, translation by Florin Bican (2018). In 2017, texts fom Tribar won the Award of the Asymptote Journal American magazine (translation by Anca Roncea). Tribar appeared in Romania in 2018, at Nemira, Vorpal collection.
Veronica Roth
(Statele Unite ale Americii / United States of America)
Veronica Roth is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Divergent series (Divergent, Insurgent, Allegiant, and Four: A Divergent Collection). Divergent received the 2011 Goodreads Choice Award for Favorite Book, Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2011, and was the winner of the YALSA 2012 Teens’ Top Ten. The trilogy has been adapted into a blockbuster movie series starring Shailene Woodley and Theo James. Carve the Mark published in January 2017 and debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestsellers list. It remained on the list for eighteen weeks to follow. The Fates Divide, the second installment of the Carve the Mark series, debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestsellers list and continues to capture legions of readers. Though she was born in Mount Kisco, New York, Veronica’s family moved to Hong Kong and Germany before settling in Barrington, Illinois. In elementary school, Veronica read constantly, but it wasn’t until she got a “make your own book!” kit from her mother as a gift that she thought to write anything of her own. From that time on, she knew she would write for the rest of her life, whether she was published or not. She wrote the manuscript that would become Divergent in her free time while attending Northwestern University, where she graduated magna cum laude with a degree in English Literature with Creative Writing in 2010. Her books are published in Romania at Corint, Leda Edge series.
Dorina Rusu
(România / Romania)
Dorina Rusu was a journalist during the complicated period of the 90s and witnessed most of the important events of those years. She wrote for Opinia Studențească, Cuvântul, Zig-Zag, România Liberă, Ziua. He has collaborated with Radio Free Europe and worked at TVR. She was married to the liberal politician Horia Rusu, and after his death in 2001 she managed the foundation with the same name for ten years, which promoted the ideas of classical liberalism and Western capitalism. She collaborated in several electoral campaigns, including Crin Antonescu’s 2009 campaign and that of Klaus Iohannis in 2014. Since 2015 she has been a member of the National Audiovisual Council.
Alexandra Rusu
(România / Romania)
Alexandra Rusu is a book editor, digital copywriter and co-founder of Booktopia.ro. She studied Literature in Bucharest, at the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures and in Berlin, at the European College of Liberal Arts. She published her works in Evenimentul zilei, New York Times Book Review, Cosmopolitan, The Institute and in the anthology De la Waters la Similea: Oameni cool scriu despre muzica lor (Humanitas, 2013). She translated Paul Auster, În țara ultimelor lucruri (Humanitas, 2005). In 2016, she published Cartea năsoaselor at Vellant.
Kamila Shamsie
(Pakistan, Marea Britanie / Pakistan, Great Britain)
Kamila Shamsie is the author of seven novels. The most recent, Home Fire, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017 and won the Women’s Prize 2018. A God in Every Stone was shortlisted for the Baileys Prize, the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. Three of her novels have received awards from Pakistan’s Academy of Letters. Kamila Shamsie is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 2013 was named a Granta Best of Young British Novelist. In 2014 she published in Romanian the book Kartografie (Polirom). She grew up in Karachi and now lives in London.
Goce Smilevski
(Macedonia / Macedonia)
Goce Smilevski was born in 1975 in Skopje (Macedonia). He was educated at Charles University in Prague, Central European University in Budapest, and Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje. He is author of several novels, including Freud’s Sister, that has been translated into more than thirty languages. In Romania it was published by Polirom, translated by Octavian Blenchea. For his works of fiction Goce Smilevski won several international awards: European Union Prize for Literature, Premio Per la Cultura Mediterranea and Central European Initiative Award for Literature.
Bogdan-Alexandru Stănescu
(România / Romania)
Bogdan-Alexandru Stănescu was born in 1979. He is a writer, essayist, translator, editor, president of the International Literature Festival in Bucharest (FILB), coordinator of the Polirom Library collection. He debuted with a literary chronicle in Luceafărul magazine (1999), while he was a junior editor of the Sunday Newspaper. He published short prose in most Prima mea… anthologies from ART. In 2010, he published together with Vasile Ernu the volume Ceea ce ne desparte. Epistolarul de la Hanul lui Manuc (Polirom), and in 2012 he had his debut as a poet with Apoi, după bătălie, ne-am tras sufletul (Cartea Românească), nominated at the Observator cultural Magazine Awards and at Radio România Cultural Awards for 2012. In 2013, he published the volume Enter Ghost. Scrisori imaginare către Osip Mandelştam at ART and in 2014, the second volume of poems, anaBASis (Cartea Românească), nominated at Radio România Cultural Awards. Since 2012 he is a doctor in literature, with the thesis Emil Botta: Ars moriendi. He translated from Alberto Manguel, James Joyce, Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner, Sandra Newman, Edward Hirsch, and Paul Auster. In 2018 he benefited from a FILIT residence.
Moni Stănilă
(România, Republica Moldova / Romania, Republic of Moldova)
Moni Stănilă was born in 1978 in Tomeşti, Timiş county. She studied Orthodox Theology in Timişoara and Sibiu. Since 2010 she has been living in Chişinău where she works in the press as a columnist in the most read Romanian-language newspaper, Timpul de dimineaţă, and leads with Alexandru Vakulovski the literary cenacle The Republic of the Municipal Library. She published the Iconostas Conversion Diary (Graphe, 2007); the volumes of poetry Postoi parovoz. Confesiunile dogmatistei (Ninpress-Charmides, 2009); Sagarmatha (Tracus Arte, 2012); Colonia fabricii (Cartea Românească, 2015); O lume din evantaie, pe care să nu o împarți cu nimeni (Charmides, 2017), the novels Al 4-lea (Tracus Arte, 2013) and Războiul solomonarilor (Polirom, 2018). Her poems were translated into German, English, French, Swedish, Russian, Azerbaijani, Turkish.
Jón Kalman Stefánsson
(Islanda / Iceland)
Jón Kalman Stefánsson was born in 1963 in Reykjavik (Iceland). Over the last few years he has created a unique and enchanting fictional world in a series of related novels and short stories. Four of these works have been nominated for the Nordic Council Literary Prize. In 2005 Jón Kalman received the Icelandic Literature Prize for Summer Light, Enter Night, an unusual collection of stories and connected fragments. Stefánsson made his international breakthrough with Trilogy about the Boy, which includes Heaven and Hell, The Sorrow of Angels and The Heart of Man, for which he gained international recognition, numerous prizes, and a feature film deal (Spellbound Productions & Cap Horn Film). The first book in his following duology, Fish Have No Feet, was longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize and received numerous international awards. His latest novel The Story of Ásta (2017) became an instant bestseller in Iceland upon publication. Awards and nominations (selected): Nominated for the 2018 Icelandic Literature Award, longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2017, nominated for the 2015 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, shortlisted for the 2015 French Literary Award Prix Médicis, nominated for the 2015. Nordic Council Literature Prize, nominated for the 2015 Icelandic Literature Award, winner of the 2015 Best Foreign Novel LIRE Award, winner of the 2015 Millepages Award.
Robert Şerban
(România / Romania)
Robert Şerban was born in 1970 in Drobeta-Turnu Severin. He is a writer, journalist and editor. Graduate of the Faculty of Arts and Design and of the Faculty of Civil Engineering, both in Timişoara, the city he lives in. He is the president of the International Literature Festival in Timişoara. Producer and moderator of the cultural program Piper pe limbă, broadcast by TVR Timişoara and TVR 3, and editor of the Orizont magazine. He has published 20 books of fiction, mostly poetry, for which he has received several literary awards. He has been invited to international literary festivals and held public lectures from his work in Serbia, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Israel, Poland, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Denmark. The poems appeared in anthologies, publications or volumes in German, Serbian, Hungarian, Polish, Czech, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Macedonian, Danish, Norwegian, Hebrew, Swedish, Arabic, Ukrainian, Yiddish etc.
Irina Teodorescu
(România / Romania)
Irina Teodorescu was born in 1979 in Bucharest and has been living in France since 1998. She is a French and Romanian writer. Following a collection of short texts (Treize, Émue, 2011), published three novels in French at Gaïa/Actes Sud: La malédiction du bandit moustachu (2014), Les Etrangères (2015) and Celui qui comptait être heureux longtemps (2018), distinguished with various literary awards. Her first novel appeared at Polirom in 2016 entitled Blestemul tâlharului mustacios. She often participates in various publications, the latter being a collective collection published by Inculte, Le Livre des places (2018). Irina Teodorescu is currently working on a new novel, on two theatre plays and prepares a drawing exhibition.
Daniel Timariu
(România / Romania)
Daniel Timariu was born in Râmnicu Vâlcea. He is a professional programmer, and since 2014, SF & Fantasy writer. He debuted in 2015 in Helion magazine with the short story Din lift. He collaborates with several magazines such as Helion, Gazeta SF, Revista de suspans, Argos, iocan, Știință&Tehnică. In 2016, he published two volumes of stories, Amețeli postlumice and Fete în roșu și alte povestiri polițiste, and in 2017, two novels in the Tenebre Series: The Laura Cazul Laura and Labirintul.
Carl Frode Tiller
(Norvegia / Norway)
Carl Frode Tiller was born in 1970 in Namsos (Norway). He is a historian by education (master degree in 1998, about the sawmill culture in Namsos from 1945-1998), but has been a full time fiction writer since 2001, when he published his first book The Slope, a debut that gave him several prizes, among others the Tarjei Vesaas Debut Prize. His break through as a writer came with the trilogy Encerclement (2007, 2011, 2014), a book that won both The Brage Prize, The Norwegian Critics Prize, The Hunger Prize and that was nominated for the Nordic Councils Litterary Prize twice – first for Encercling 1, then for Encircling 2. His latest book was Beginnings (2017), which also is nominated to The Nordic Councils Litterary Prize. Tiller has also written several playwrights. He lives in Trondheim in Norway with his wife and three daughters.
Alex Tocilescu
(România / Romania)
Alex Tocilescu was born in 1977 in Bucharest and he is a writer, playwright, musician and copywriter. He graduated from the American Studies Department of the University of Frankfurt. He debuted in 2005 with the short prose Eu et al. (Polirom), followed by the novel Carne crudă (Brumar, 2007) and the short prose volumes Standard (Paideia, 2009) and Imperiul pisicilor (Polirom, 2017). He published articles in Dilema Veche, Vice and Decât o Revistă. His most recent volume, Adevărata carte cu pisicile lui Tocilescu, appeared at Art in 2017. His play Bun de export was selected at the National Theater Festival 2018. He published Povestea lui George Topîrceanu at the Literary Museums of Iași Press (2018).
Andrei Ursu
(România / Romania)
Andrei Ursu was born in 1984 in Timişoara. He graduated from the English-German Department at the Faculty of Letters at the West University of Timişoara. He has a BA in post-modern British literature, focusing on John Fowles’ novels. He debuted at 19 with a fragment of a novel, unfinished, in the Orizont Latin magazine from Timişoara. At age 23, he was asked to write a text for the sixth year students of the 2006-2007 generation of the Acting department. He called it Treziţi din somn, priveam la stele, being played as a BA show. It was also played in Arad, at the Studio Hall of the “Ioan Slavici” Classic Theater, but also in Iaşi, during the first edition of the ContemporanIS Student Theater International Festival and once more in Timişoara, at StudenFest. In 2009, he wrote the text in two characters Viaţă Lights/Moarte fără filtru, which he sent to the National Dramaturgy Contest, 2009-2010, and won it. The award consisted of setting up the show on the stage of the “Mihai Eminescu” National Theater in Timişoara. The text was selected on the short list of the Irish Embassy Award, 2010, and in 2012 reached the shortlist on the Talking About Borders International Contest. In 2018, he benefited from a FILIT residence.
Éric Vuillard
(Franța / France)
Éric Vuillard was born in 1968 in Lyon (France). French writer and filmmaker. He directed two movies, L’homme qui marche and Mateo Falcone. He is the author of the novel Conquistadors (2009), which was awarded the Grand prix littéraire du Web – Special mention of the jury 2009 and with the Ignatius J. Reilly 2010 Award. He received the Franz-Hessel 2012 Award and the 2013 Valery-Larbaud Award for the volumes La bataille d’Occident (2012) and Congo (2012) and, also, the Joseph-Kessel 2015 Award for Tristesse de la terre (2014) and the Alexandre Viallate Award for 14 juillet (2014). His newest book, Ordinea de zi (L’ordre du jour, 2017), received the Goncourt 2017 Award.
Alex Văsieș
(România / Romania)
Alex Văsieș was born in 1993 in Bistrița. He debuted with the volume Lovitura de cap, published by Casa de Pariuri Literare, in 2012. In 2016, his volumes Instalația (Cartea Românească) were published, for which he was granted the Young Poet of the Year 2016 Award and Oana Văsieș (Charmides). He studied comparative literature at “Babeş-Bolyai” University in Cluj-Napoca.
Tomáš Zmeškal
(Republica Cehă / Czech Republic)
Tomáš Zmeškal is a Czech writer. He was born in Prague to a Congolese father and a Czech mother. In 1987, he left the then-Czechoslovakia to live in London, where he studied English language and literature at Kingʼs College and lived in London for a number of years. He returned in the late 1990s. He taught at Charles University for several years English literature, and currently teaches creative writing. Zmeškal was lauded for his debut novel Milostný dopis klínovým písmem (Love Letter in Cuneiform Script), published in 2008. The book won the EU Prize for Literature and the Josef Škvorecký Prize. He has published two other books since. Controversial Biography of Black and White Lamb, (2009) which is partially autobiographical and which described prevalent racism during the communist era and high level of conformism in the Czech society. This book was at first bitterly criticized as not being “objective” of the situation in the Czechoslovalkia, however now is a standard novel for high school contemporary literature exams. The last Zmeškal’s book Socrates on Equator (2013), called family reportages, deals with the author´s search for his father, which led him to Democratic Republic of Congo, where they met. Zmeškal also published short stories, and wrote several radio plays. His books were translated into 13 languages. He lives in Prague.