14 September 2012 Krakow in Lviv
The 7th International Literary Festival in Lviv, considered to be the most important literary festival in Ukraine, is under way. It promotes readership and literature, forms the basis for interaction among writers, publishers and literature lovers from various countries. This year’s edition is especially important to us – for the first time in history a representative of the Krakow Festival Office is participating in this event in order to present Krakow and the Reading Malopolska project.
Reading Malopolska is co-financed by European Union within the scope of Malopolska Regional Operational Programme for the years 2007-2013. It consists in promoting the entire region internationally through a Literary Malopolska product developed for this very purpose. In particular, by means of presentations organised abroad, international conferences, the production and distribution of a film promoting Krakow and Malopolska and creating a multi-media Internet portal.
The Publishers’ Forum in Lviv, which has become the largest book fair in Eastern Europe over the past 17 years of its existence, is a perfect venue for a large international literary festival in this part of Europe. An extremely rich cultural atmosphere of Lviv, a city which has always been on the border of two cultures and thus has a very long tradition of intercultural dialog, is another important positive factor.
The festival includes a number of events, mainly consisting of: soirées, debates, book and magazine presentations, other literary happenings, screenings of contemporary short films, Ukrainian and foreign video art, and a photographic exhibition.
In just the years 2006-2008, the festival was visited by 280 Ukrainian and 172 foreign writers from 23 countries; 560 meetings with authors, theatre performances and presentations took place, over 75 thousand fans of modern literature participated in these events. Past guest of the festival include, among others: Jostein Gaarder (Norwey), Lina Ekdahl (Sweden), Vigdis Hjorth (Norwey), Katherine and Irene Frain Pancol (France), Judith Hermann and Bas Böttcher (Germany), Marek Krajewski, Daniel Odija and Olga Tokarczuk (Poland), Vladimir Sorokin (Russia), Manfred Chobot (Austria), David-Dephy Gogibedashvili (Georgia), Alek Popov (Bulgaria), Marcelijus Martinaitis (Lithuania), Sava Damjanov and Goran Petrović (Serbia), Zoran Ferić (Croatia), Carles Hac Mor, Ester Xargay and Casasses Enric (Catalonia), Pedro Lenz, Raphael Urweider and Christian Uetz (Switzerland), John Burnside (Great Britain) and many more.
