The 9th edition of The International Literature and Translation Festival

The 9th edition of the Iasi International Festival of Literature and Translation - FILIT took place between October 20-24, 2021.

Corina Sabău, 13.11.2021, 14:00

The 9th edition of the Iasi International Festival of Literature and Translation – FILIT took place between October 20-24, 2021. The program consisted of a wide range of events attended by guests from 10 countries. The events were meetings with writers in various locations in the city of Iasi, debates, exhibitions and concerts. The House of Museums became the central point of FILIT, the place where volunteers, guests and the public enjoyed personalized events and experiences consisting of visits to 5 recently inaugurated museums: the Pogrom Museum in Iasi, the Museum of the Jewish Theater in Romania, the Poetry Museum, the Romanian Literature Museum, and the Museum of Childhood in the Communist period.

José Luís Peixoto, considered by the writer José Saramago “one of the most surprising revelations of recent Portuguese literature”, was among the guests of this edition of FILIT. As part of the FILIT two editorial projects were also launched, issued by the Literary Museums Publishing House, which were an immediate success: the “Original Parodies” collection, made up of five volumes to which fifty contemporary poets have contributed, and the volume “3 Croatian poets”, which is the first in the project called “Small countries, big literatures”, which focuses on some of the most appreciated poets in Croatia.

The writer Florin Lăzărescu, founding member and program coordinator of the FILIT will talk about these two projects: “Basically, the classic writers, whose names were given to literary museums in Iasi — such as Vasile Alecsandri, Otilia Cazimir, Mihai Codreanu, Mihai Eminescu and George Topîrceanu – were just the pretexts for making the ‘Original Parodies’ collection. We insisted on this aspect, we suggested to the poets to keep the original title of a poem and one verse, and then continue writing in their own style. Thats how five collective volumes of very good poetry have emerged, and I can see that everyone is starting to notice that. Furthermore, the project enjoys extraordinary visibility, as we are talking about 50 people who are involved in its promotion. Im glad that these volumes have come out, the creation process was not very easy because we are talking about five new books of poetry made in only three months. To give you an insight into this project, there were all kinds of situations, some very funny. There is this poet whom I invited to participate in the project and the next day he was ready, he handed us five impeccable poems. And there were poets who told us the poems would be ready in one week, but they finished them only two months later, but eventually they all wrote some very beautiful poems. There were also poets who wanted to participate in the project but later withdrew, because they were not inspired or did not like what they had written. There is a very interesting story behind all these volumes that I consider very nice. There is another wonderful poetry project that is worth the public’s attention. Some time ago, I had the idea of launching a collection at the Literary Museums Publishing House, a publishing house within the National Romanian Literature Museum of Iasi, dedicated to writers from the neighboring countries, from Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, writers who have not been translated in Romania. And this year we had the opportunity to publish a volume including three very good Croatian poets – Goran Čolakhodžić, Miroslav Kirin, and Nada Topić – with whom we started this collection. It is an anthology made by a Croatian critic, and the respective poets were translated by Adrian Oproiu, a translator who lives in Zagreb, one of this year’s guests at the FILIT. We, at the Romanian Literature Museum of Iași, have been talking about the literature of Romania’s neighbors and I am glad that we started this project, which I hope to continue in the coming years.”

“The FILIT workshops for translators”, an initiative of the Romanian Literature Museum – MNLR Iaşi and of the International Festival of Literature and Translation – FILIT Iași, support contemporary creation and the promotion of the cultural heritage at international level, contributing to the development of a large system of literary residencies in Eastern Europe. The 7th edition of the “FILIT Workshops for Translators”, organized by the National Museum of Romanian Literature of Iaşi in collaboration with the Ipoteşti Memorial – Mihai Eminescu National Center for Studies provided the framework for training and professional communication to translators from Romanian into a foreign language. The beneficiaries of this edition came from twelve countries, and the program included two round tables and a series of conferences held by Florin Bican, Bogdan Crețu, Cristina Hermeziu, Doru Liciu, Doris Mironescu, Mihaela Ursa, and Radu Vancu. The translators spoke about the transposition in different languages ​​of some classic and contemporary texts from Romanian literature and identified strategies for promoting Romanian literature abroad.

The writer Florin Lăzărescu, founding member and coordinator of FILIT programs, is at the microphone with details: “This year, given the context of the pandemic, we decided not to take any risks inviting translators from abroad. So far, at FILIT, we have paid special attention to native translators from other countries who translate Romanian literature. The novelty this year was that we invited more translators who translate into Romanian, certainly any reader knows them, since they are translators of famous authors in Romanian. But along the way, we came to have a hybrid event because it so happened that many of the translators from Romanian into a foreign language had residences in Romania. And we were happy with this formula because their discussions have been very interesting.”

During the last FILIT event, at the “Vasile Alecsandri” National Theater in Iaşi, the writer Simona Goșu received the “High School Students Award for the most beloved book published in 2020” for her novel ‘Fragile’. The award was offered by the Iaşi County School Inspectorate following the vote of a jury made up of 29 students from 11 high schools in Iași. (LS)