Littera Baltica
(2007 02 21 10:55)
Arranged on regular basis every second year in Turku the Littera Baltica conference aims to build
a network of writers and translators in the Baltic Sea Region, in order to promote the translation and distribution of literature in the participating countries.
The conference also provides an opportunity for writers from the Baltic countries to meet their colleagues and get a first-hand notion of the literature currently being written in other parts of the Baltic area. The meeting offers an inspiring forum for discussing current issues in literature and writing as well as useful contacts and channels of interaction. With the enlargement process of the European Union this is of great importance.
The geographical location and the strong connections, both economical and cultural, within the Baltic Sea Region, that the city of Turku has had throughout its long history, make Turku an excellent meeting point for literary dialogue between people representing different literary and cultural traditions and backgrounds.
The theme of the 2008 edition is INSIDE / OUTSIDE?
The writer is positioned outside the community he or she describes, by force or choice. At a distance, you get a clearer perception of what's going on, and the writer may be regarded as someone standing outside the lighted window looking in, driven by the desire to penetrate into the hidden and private. At the same time, the writer lives within his or her characters, and is thus in the deepest sense positioned inside.
We are outside the others' experience, and moreover, we are also outside our own experience, in the sense that for the main part, we move inside an imaginary universe. ”Reality is formed only at the present moment, by means of language” (Marcel Proust), and the aim of literature might be to create a place into which we are drawn in order to be subjected to the essential; where it really is a matter of us, not of them.
Find more info on the project's website.
Read here about the past editions.
Contact:
Jarmo Ikonen
Littera Baltica
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