Follow the journey of word express across South East Europe at www.word-express.org/travel-blog

27.10.09, Bucuresti-Sofia, Barış Müstecaplıoğlu writes:

FIRST STOP: ROMANIA

We have spent three wonderful days in Bucharest with Anahit Hayrapetyan from Armenia and Ognjen Spahic from Montenegro, and now we are preparing for our first journey by train to Sofia. I am excited because one of my books, The Coward and The Beast will be published in Bulgarian translation soon, and I hope I will meet the translator who is working on my book during this visit too. We are a good group, continuously making jokes and enjoying the time we are sharing together. We have made many new friends in Romania, and everyone, especially our Florin Bican from the National Book Centre, has been very kind and helpful. Florin showed us around the city between the planned events.

The weather was very good so we could do long walks exploring the city of Bucharest. On the first day, we gave a reading in our language and then our dear colleague, the writer Claudiu Komartin, read the translations of the texts. In the evening, we attended a house party with young Romanian poets and translators. We had talked about literature and our countries drinking beer and coffee until late. The next day, we met many contemporary Romanian writers and Florin’s students who are young translators of Romanian literature from different countries such as Italy, USA and Bulgaria, attending a course organised by the National Book Centre. We had a literary discussion together in a beautiful castle on the shore of a lake in the woods.

During the first day’s reading and the second day’s discussion, we tried to find answers to mainly three question, “what we expect from word express project as participating authors”, “why are we writing” and “what is the use of writing today”. These were interesting questions and I want to share my answers to these questions with all of you. Maybe we can talk about them again when we meet other travelling authors on the way.

Read the rest at www.word-express.org/travel-blog

Public Reading, Meetings and Discussions in Sofia

British Council Bulgaria, Ciela Publishing House and Literaturen Vestnhik are organising a public reading, meetings and discussions with the authors from Armenia, Bulgaria,  Montenegro, Romania and Turkey travelling on the Word Express Train of the British Council Creative Collaboration project .

26 October, Monday, 19.00
Ciela Bookshop, Sofia City Centre
2 Arsenalski Blvd., floor 3

Participating Authors:
Adela Greceanu (Romania)
Anahit Hayrapetyan (Armenia)
Angel Igov (Bulgaria)
Barış Müstecaplıoğlu (Turkey)
Claudiu Komartin (Romania)
Ivan Hristov (Bulgaria)
Kamelia Spasova (Bulgaria)
Maria Kalinova  (Bulgaria)
Ognjen Spahić (Montenegro)

Word Express project is part of the EU-supported Literature Across Frontiers Programme and of the British Council’s Creative Collaboration Programme which aims to enrich the cultural life of Europe and its surrounding countries and to build trust and understanding across communities by generating dialogue and debate. Word Express is a new project for literary exchange in South-East Europe, organised by the UK-based Literature Across Frontiers in cooperation with Delta Publishing in Istanbul, Profil Books in Zagreb, Helicon in Tel Aviv, the National Book Centre in Bucharest, Literaturen Vestnik and Ciela Publishing House in Sofia and other partners in the 12 participating countries - Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Israel, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Turkey and the United Kingdom.