Swedish – Romanian Cultural Evening in Bucharest

“Det finns ett hem för mig i dina dikter”
”There is a home for me in your poems”

We have the pleasure to invite you to an unique type of event in Bucharest, the second in our series of Cultural Evenings for Expats. You will have the opportunity to meet two young writers and cultural activists with an interesting bond that brought them ”at home” in each others poems, across the seas – Athena Farrokhzad (Swe) and Svetlana Carstean (Ro). They met in Stockholm during a translation workshop organised by the Romanian Cultural Institute back in 2012. Their story is a poem by itself – a girl with a Slavic name meaning light (Svetlana) from the North East region of Romania (Botoșani) who lives and works in Bucharest met a girl with a name of an ancient Greek godess meaning wit and knowledge (Athena) who has born in the far Middle East Iran (Teheran) who grew up in Gothenburg (Swe) and for the moment lives and writes in Stockholm. There was a special chemistry and communication between them and their life stories which resulted in the Swedish translation of Svetlana’s first book (Skruvstädsblomman) and the Romanian translation of Athena’s first book (Albdinalb) and their strong friendship. Based on their profound connection, they held several poetry readings and discussions in Sweden and for the moment they are writing a new book together that is due to be published in 2016 in Sweden.

On the 16th of May, right before the Night of Museums starts, we will have the unique opportunity to hear the two poets share with us their stories, their contradictions, their fathers’ dreams with their different political revolutions and also to hear some extracts from their latest work-in-progress volume. It will be a multicultural event, as complicated and fascinating as their friendship – they will read poems in Swedish and Romanian, but their dialogue will be mostly in French (their connecting language) and English.

After the reading, we invite all guests for a glass of wine and relaxed interaction and networking with other participants. We look forward to welcome you in our elegant venue.

An event organised by Miruna Vlada for Conceptual Lab, with the help of Romanian Cultural Institute and the Embassy of Sweden to Bucharest.

Entrance fee (donation, with drinks included) – 50 ron.

There are limited places for the event, so please book your place in advance at miruna.vlada@aiccromania.org