7. - 12. June 2007: Bukarest - Iaşi - Chişinău

The festival train takes off at Bukarest, where the large publishing-, literature-, and translating scene alone provides an ideal platform to adequately present the polyphonic European literature, and to raise curiosity for the unknown. Voices from eight different countries are going to be heard in an unusual way, thus changing the traditional reading format. The most prominent Romanian representative in this many-voiced choir is Mircea Dinescu.

Consistent with the title „European Borderlands“ the festival bus is headed to the border town Iaşi directly after departing from Bukarest. Here in Iaşi, directly located at the new EU-Eastern border, universities with their staff and students have dominated the townscape since many years. Now, European literature naturally adds to this: Iaşi features five state- and three private universities with altogether 60,000 students who nearly present a quarter of the town’s overall population. Along with all the book kiosks one can get across everywhere in town, Iasi is also a town of readers waiting to meet their authors personally.

Consequentially, it´s only a little step then over the nearby border to Moldova and it´s capital Chişinău, where the literary festival will end. The new founded German cultural centre "Akzente" at Chişinău and the literary journal "Contrafort" afford an opportunity to the festival to present European literature boundless.  Therewith the cultural isolation of the country, that is not enough noticed on the screen of many European cultural organizers shall be breached.

"European Borderlands" is an initiative of the Allianz Kulturstiftung in cooperation with the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin as well as the Goethe Institut and the Buch Informationzentrum in Bukarest, the Goethezentrum in Iasi and the Kulturzentrum "Akzente" in Chisinau.