Poets' European Spring international festival, held in Moldova, awards prizes

Chisinau, 5 May /MOLDPRES/ - A ceremony on awarding the prizes of the eighth issue of the Poets’ European Spring International Festival, held on 3-5 May, took place at the Moldovan Writers’ Union late on 4 May.    

Contacted by MOLDPRES, the head of the Writers’ Union of Moldova, Arcadie Suceveanu, said that, in 2018, the festival had been quite productive, with more symposiums, conferences and meetings with readers held at the event. According to Suceveanu, the goal of the festival is to open new horizons towards culture, as well as to bring together writers from different parts of the world.   

For his part, the deputy head of the Moldovan Writers’ Union, Teo Chiriac, noted that the Poets’ European Spring Festival had become a tradition. “Each issue of the festival has something new: new names, new books, new relations, which gives continuity and great hopes for the future. Thanks to these collaborations and meetings, we have published collections of poems and prose from other literatures. Also, books by our writers have been translated into other languages,” Teo Chiriac stressed.    

Attending the event, the former director of the Literature House (Literaturhaus) from Berlin, writer Ernest Wichner said that, here, in Chisinau, he had got more books by writers from Moldova. “Earlier, I have translated two novels by Liliana Corobca. I had impression that I lived in a Moldovan village, as a novel tells about a Moldovan village, left by parents and in which only children remained. Thus, I took knowledge of local social situations, but on the spot, things look different than in literature and I should still ponder over the things I learned here. I would like the festival to continue just as it evolved and more poets and translators to participate in it,” Ernest Wichner said.      

The prize for poetry went to Petre Popa and Moni Stanila and the prize for translations was awarded to writer Vsevolod Ciornei. A poet, Lucian Vasiliu, from Iasi, Romania, was awarded the Grand Prize and the trophy of the festival. 

Today, the participants in the festival went to Soroca, where a recital of poems was held at the local Fortress.

Writers from Moldova, Romania, Azerbaijan, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Russia, Slovakia and Turkey took part in the 8th issue of the Poets’ European Spring International Festival.   

(Reporter N. Roibu, editor M. Jantovan)