The literary mainstream will meet in Kolozsvár in just a few weeks, as following the present pandemic rules, the 10th Festive Book Week of Kolozsvár/Cluj-Napoca will be held between the 3rd and the 6th of June. Because the festival could not be held last year, the event will present books from the last two years.
The main location of the Festive Book Week will be Bánffy Palace, while programs will also be held in the Bulgakov Literary Café and the House of Religious Freedom. In collaboration with Filmtett, Victoria Cinema will hold screenings with two of the week’s guests who are writers as well as film directors, said Zoltán Levente Nagy, the president of the Iskola Alapítvány (School Foundation), one of the organizing partners.
A total of 25 publishers registered, and there will be more than 80 authors and more than 70 programs. Organizers hope that the infection rate in the area will drop below 1.5 cases per 1,000 inhabitants so that venue interiors can utilize 50 percent of their capacity and 300 people can gather in outside areas. Hungary and Romania also need an agreement in place acknowledging each other’s vaccine certificates so that guests from Hungary can enter Romania easily.
The organizers are hoping for the best and are not planning an online alternative for the event because everyone is eager to meet in person. There will be no concerts, and all book presentations and meetings with the public will be held with a limited number of people based on preregistration.
The president of the Hungarian Book Guild of Romania, Gyula H. Szabó, highlighted that there will be a conference for literary translators as well, which will be organized on the 90th anniversary of the death of Aladár Kuncz.
The latest book of the Franciscan monk Csaba Böjte, Füveskönyv, will also be presented in the renewed Franciscan refectory. Among the Transylvanian guests, there will be Ferenc Zsidó, László Király, Noémi László and Imre József Balázs.
The week’s guest of honor will be 75-year-old Géza Bereményi, who after his book presentation and meeting with the public will participate in the screening of his 1988 movie Eldorado.
Péter Gárdos, Pál Závada, Ádám Nádasdy, Krisztián Nyáry, András Cserna Szabó, Janka Fábián, András Kepes, Olga Szederkényi, Zoltán Bene, Kata Tisza, Judit Berg, Krisztina Rita Molnár and András Dániel will also be present at the 10th Festive Book Week of Kolozsvár.
The event is being organized by the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (known by its Hungarian acronym of RMDSZ), the Iskola Alapítvány, the Hungarian Book Guild of Romania and the League of Hungarian Writers from Transylvania in partnership with Filmtett and the Hungarian Cultural Institute of Bucharest and with the support of Hungary’s State Secretariat of National Policies.
Featured photo: Maszol.ro
