Tbilisi International Festival of Literature to host poets, authors from post-Soviet space and beyond
Lyuba Yakimchuk has authored poetry collections, with her works translated into nearly dozen languages. Photo: Wilson Center.
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Poets of the post-Soviet literary scene, writers from Western Europe and local names will be hosted in a three-part Tbilisi International Festival of Literature starting this Sunday, with the annual event contributing to the status of Tbilisi as the 2021 UNESCO World Book Capital.
Organisers of this year's edition will first host a programme of poetry evenings and a talk about literature in social and political activism, with the selection of poets from the former Soviet states reflecting the relevance of the subject in their regions.
Over two days, Belarusian poets Julia Cimafiejeva and Alhierd Bacharevic, Russian dissident poet Alexei Tsvetkov, writer and editor Anastasia Levkova, poets Lyuba Yakimchuk from Ukraine, Rasim Garaja from Azerbaijan and Vahe Arsen from Armenia will be involved in this part of the festival.
The participants will have panel talks about life and work of authors under totalitarian or wartime political regimes, and resistance to the ongoing Russian occupation of regions of Georgia and Ukraine in the respective literary scenes of the two countries.
Sci-fi novellist Blake Crouch is known both for literary works and his screenwriting. Photo via kgnu.org.
The festival's focus will then be brought to Georgian authors, with talks involving them discussing connections of literary symbolism with three cities of the country: the capital Tbilisi, central city of Gori and western regional capital Kutaisi.
In the final section of the annual event, authors, poets and literature teachers from Western Europe, North and South America are set to meet readers, talk writing in a multilingual setting, host workshops for young authors, and more.
The roster will include American sci-fi writer Blake Crouch, Argentinian Booker International longlister Ariana Harwicz, Paris-based Lebanese writer Iman Humaydan Younes, Swiss poet and performer Heike Fiedler and French poet Aurelia Lassaque.
Tbilisi International Festival of Literature has been held since 2015, with the 2020 edition held in an online format due to Covid-19 restrictions. Organised by Writers' House of Georgia, This year's is set to run between October 17-24 and support the Tbilisi UNESCO World Book Capital programme.
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