Join Bulgaria’s 'Night of Literature': Live Readings from 19 European Books Across the Country

Excerpts from 19 European titles will be read on September 25

The thirteenth "Night of Literature" will take place on September 25 between 18:00 and 21:30 in ten cities in Bulgaria. Atypical spaces for literature in Sofia, Burgas, Varna, Veliko Tarnovo, Gabrovo, Dobrich, Plovdiv, Ruse, Silistra and the village of Chavdar will become "readers' nests" for a couple of hours. Actors, journalists, translators, musicians, authors, etc. will read at these locations within three and a half hours.

The "Night of Literature" takes place at the same time in different European cities, as well as simultaneously in all reading nests in the respective cities.

The readings will be from 6:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Only in Dobrich, the event will take place between 4:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m., as it will be part of the festive program for the Day of the City of Dobrich.

At each location, the same excerpt from the same book will be read every half hour. Bulgaria is participating this year with 19 books from 19 countries. Excerpts from the books are selected by the embassies and cultural institutes of European countries, and the audience can create their own itinerary according to their personal preferences for European languages, writers, readers or the locations where the event takes place.

The authors from whose books we will hear excerpts this year are: Umberto Eco, Prof. Dr. Bozhidar Manov, Sophie Reyer, Column Tóibín, Gorjan Petrevski, Annelies Verbeke, Dagmar Leupold, José Rodrigues dos Santos, Peter Høeg, Anna Woltz, Goran Vojnović, Kostas Mavrudis and Ursula Foskolou, Juan José Millas and Juan Luis Arsuaga, Eleanor Catton, Paweł Huelle, Victoria Amelina, Attila Bartis, Miřenka Čechová and Etienne Barillier.

Three of them - Bozhidar Manov, Dagmar Leupold and Gorjan Petrevski - will be at the readings in person. You will find complete information about the selected books, where, who and what is being read on the initiative's website www.noshtnaliteraturata.com.

The readers in Sofia this year will be Bozhidar Manov, Linda Ruseva, Maria Silvester, Danail Obretenov, Alexander Mitrev, Asen Kukushev, Daria Karapetkova, Iva Kalafatova, Gheorgi Georgiev-Antika and Igor Damyanov, Georgi Zlatarev, Iva Paneva, Angel Bonchev, Petar Rusev, Raya Gospodinova and Rada Vazova, Simeon Galabov, Demina Ivancheva and Alexandra Timmerman, Dimitar Nikolov, Rumen Troev, Katerina Stoyanova. While the reading nests will be NATFIZ "Krastyo Sarafov", National Student House, Concert Complex "Bulgaria", ONE Gallery, Swimming Pool, Structura Gallery, National Library "St. St. Cyril and Methodius", Museum of Paleontology and Historical Geology, Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski", Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, National Museum of Natural Sciences at BAS, National Theater "Ivan Vazov", National Ethnographic Museum - BAS, On The Rocks, Bar Petak, Credo Bonum Gallery, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Metropolitan Library, Strak.

Young readers over the age of 14 will be able to visit the reading nests, specially marked on the event map, to hear excerpts from works also suitable for a younger audience. The book "Gypsum" is actually not only a joint choice with the youngest readers participating in the "Night of Literature", but it is they who will be reading the book during the hours of the Night.

Sign language translation by Silvana Pavlova and Rositsa Karadjova will also be provided in some of the reading nests according to the schedule, with the assistance of the "Development and Integration" foundation.

In Sofia, the "Night of Literature" will end with the Night Literary Route of the poet and playwright Stefan Ivanov: "Open doors, dead ends: about literary beginnings and debuts", which will start at 9:30 p.m. in front of the 9th French High School Alphonse de Lamartine (35 "Patriarch Evtimii" Blvd.). In this personal route of sharing, just as the night suggests, Stefan Ivanov will walk us through the dusty corners of memory, the connecting points between the night and texts about it by Dimitar Voev, Dalchev, Yavorov and from Tsocho Boyadzhiev's remarkable study of the night, as well as the beginning of the writer's literary path, closed editors, half-forgotten editions, memories of the magazines "Rodna Rech" and "Krag", for the first anxious knock on the door of "Literaturen Vestnik", for discussions of books in "Nisim" bookstore and at the stall of "Crystal", today and recognizing the differences and lacks in the literary environment.

"Night of Literature" is an initiative of the Czech Centers around the world and aims to popularize contemporary European poetry and prose through non-standard readings of excerpts from translated books in atypical and unexpected places. It has been held in Bulgaria since 2012.

"Night of Literature 2024" is part of the Calendar of cultural events of the Sofia Municipality for 2024 and the "Sofia celebrates September 17" program.

The visual identity of the event is the work of the artist Damyan Damyanov.

Organizers of the thirteenth edition of "Night of Literature" are Sofia Municipality, EUNIC, "Read Sofia" Foundation, Austrian Embassy Sofia, Embassy of Belgium, Goethe-Institut Bulgaria, Embassy of Greece in Sofia, Embassy of Denmark in Bulgaria, Embassy of Ireland , Cervantes-Sofia Institute, Italian Cultural Institute, British Council Bulgaria, Polish Institute in Sofia, "Kamoish" Institute Sofia, Cultural and Information Center of the Republic of North Macedonia in Sofia and Embassy of the Republic of North Macedonia, Embassy of Slovenia in Sofia, Embassy of Ukraine, Liszt Institute - Hungarian Cultural Institute, Sofia, Czech Center Sofia, Embassy of Switzerland in Bulgaria, Children's Books Foundation.

Partners in the country are: Municipality of Burgas, Municipality of Varna, Municipality of Veliko Tarnovo, Municipality of Gabrovo, Municipality of Dobrich, Municipality of Plovdiv, Municipality of Ruse, Municipality of Silistra, Municipality of Chavdar, Regional Library "P. K. Yavorov" - Burgas, "Amorpha" youth foundation, "Elias Kanetti" society, "Partenii Pavlovich" Regional Library - Silistra.