Tbilisi Festival of Literature: 5 days of talks, poetry readings in store

North Macedonian poet, essayist and translator Nikola Madzirov will be among participants travelling to Tbilisi for the festival. Photo: Tbilisi International Festival of Literature.

Agenda.ge, 13 May 2019 - 17:18, Tbilisi,Georgia

Five days of author talks, poetry readings and panel discussions will bring a celebration of all things literature to Georgia’s capital this week, to mark the fifth edition of the Tbilisi International Festival of Literature.

 

Acclaimed novelists, poets, translators and literary critics including Linda Maria Baros, Michael Palmer and Vasyl Makhno will travel to the event to read their work and offer their views on the writing and translation work.

 

They and other foreign visitors will join their Georgian counterparts including Davit Gabunia, Zurab Karumidze and Tato Changelia to talk subjects like a challenge of transnationality in poetry and effects of translation on text.

 

Spanish poet Miriam Reyes will be the first to meet readers following the opening of the festival on Friday, introducing her works, translated by Irakli Menteshashvili and Nini Eliashvili, to the public.

 

 

Miriam Reyes will be the first visiting participant of the festival to meet visitors. Photo: Tbilisi International Festival of Literature.

 

It will be followed by author Dato Barbakadze and philosopher Giorgi Maisuradze discussing Mystifications in Georgian Literature, before a poetry meeting brings together all visiting participants of the festival.

 

The following days of the fifth festival edition will be packed with events ranging from a perspective on oral stories of the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia and the “many different truths” that come with it, to a panel discussion asking “Is It Necessary to Declaim Poetry?”.

 

Poets from Italy (Anita Piscazzi, Rosaria Lo Russo, Rita Pacilio) will bring a view on the literary scene of their country to festival-goers, while Vasyl Makhno is set to discuss Ukrainian literature.

 

 

The Writers’ House of Georgia will again host the festival this year. Photo: Tbilisi International Festival of Literature.

 

Some of the visiting authors and poets will also visit Georgian universities to meet students of respective language courses, as literary figures representing the South Caucasus region also converge to Tbilisi within the festival.

 

To conclude the yearly event, an anniversary evening will celebrate 200 years since the birth of American poet Walt Whitman, with the talk on his legacy, his works in translation and in Georgian-language editions all to be reviewed before the festival closes.

 

This year’s Tbilisi International Festival of Literature will receive visitors at the Writers’ House of Georgia, located at 13, Machabeli Street in Tbilisi, between May 17-21.