The final countdown until Bookfest 2017: Sweden, the guest of honour this year, invites you ‘to create stories’ together

 USA, Bookfest’s guest of honour in 2018.

Bookfest, the largest book fair in Romania, will kick off next week at Romexpo, in Bucharest (May 24-28) with plenty, various events in store and with Sweden as the guest of honor.

“We are very honoured and excited to welcome 9 special guests to represent Sweden at Bookfest 2017. It is such a great opportunity to attend the biggest book fair in Romania. Sweden is the guest of honour this year and our motto is “Sweden: Creating Stories”, said the Swedish ambassador to Romania, H.E. Mrs. Anneli Lindahl Kenny, during the press conference announcing the event on Wednesday.

The ambassador explained the significance of their motto: “We chose this motto because we believe that by creating stories we also create bridges between people, between countries. We have about one hundred years of diplomatic relations with Romania, but of course, they can always become closer. Through stories we can relate to one another, through stories it’s easier to understand how we can think differently and to create new stories, together,” said the Swedish ambassador in Bucharest.

“This is why the Embassy of Sweden in Romania has put a lot of effort in creating more than 20 events during Bookfest together with our nine Swedish guest writers, publishers, editors and graphic designers. Two new Swedish exhibitions will be shown at Bookfest, one that promotes children literature and one Nordic Noir and we will also organize more than 20 interactive activities for children as part of Bookfest Junior,” Anneli Lindahl Kenny said, adding that children who usually don’t have an easy access to literature will be thus allowed to be part of these activities.

According to her, the programme prepared by the embassy tackles various topics, such as to promote education, gender equality, social inclusion and diversity.

“We hope we’ll be able to provide the Bookfest public the links to all sort of topics, a glimpse of what the people in Sweden talk about, a glimpse of the Swedish current society. I hope there will be very good discussion and interactions between the Swedish guests and the Romanian public. Sweden is waiting for you to create stories and to explore new possibilities together,” the ambassador concluded.

Sweden’s stand at Bookfest is designed by IKEA, which provided the furniture.

Mihai Leontescu, project and communication coordinator at the Sweden’s Embassy, also underlined that the embassy’s goals was to promote the education for children, diversity and social inclusion at this edition of Bookfest.

A first for Bookfest is the special space designed for the children at the venue, Bookfest Junior. The programme dedicated to children, made in partnership with eematico, includes three major events. “We’ll make postcards from Sweden, we’ll build Stockholm city on a huge map and paint and decorate houses in the Swedish style and we’ll color characters from the Swedish books,” said Mihai Leontescu. He announced that children from foster homes will be able to attend those events.

A Swedish exhibition “Where children grow up” will take place within Bookfest Junior on May 24, at 15:00.

There will be also workshops focusing on the children characters from the Swedish books, which are mainly promoting the gender equality. Some of these children characters have no gender, for instance, particularly to promote the gender equality, while others present atypical topics, such as the divorce, which, despite being so painful, can be part of children’s lives and they should talk about it.

The second exhibition, “Swedish crime scenes” will focus on the Nordic noir genre and is scheduled on May 26, at 17:00.

The events in the Swedish programme will also include film screenings, every night during the fair, from 6 p.m., but also debates on the female writers’ works.

The nine Swedish guests coming to Bookfest are: editor Jacob Dalborg, Bonnierforlagen president, writer Aris Fioretos, female writer Majgull Axelsson, poet, translator and journalist Cecilia Hansson, poet and literar critic Athena Farrokhzad, graphic designer Stina Wirsen, Marten Sanden, author of books for children and teenagers, Romanian-born editor Arina Stoenescu and Johannes Klenell, editor of the famous comics magazine and publishing house, Galago.

 USA, Bookfest’s guest of honour in 2018

In his turn, Grigore Arsene, the president of the Association of the Editors in Romania, Bookfest’s organizer, revealed that the association has been “targeting” Sweden for a long time, to invite it as a guest of honour, considering the large interest for the Nordic literature in general, and for the Swedish one in particular.

“The Swedish literature is one of the strong pillars of the current cultural landscape and I hope the public will enjoy the poetry and freshness brought by the guest of honour of this Bookfest edition,” said Arsene.

Overall, he informed there would be 400 events at this edition, bringing a lot of novelties and comprising book launches, film screenings, debates, shows and theatre plays for children, all in all, “a very wide and rich programme”.

“For the first time in the fair’s history, we’ll have a very large space set up for children, stretching on 70 square meters, on the balcony of the C1 pavilion. The market of the books for children is on the rise all over the world and we are going on this trend, too,” Arsene stated.

He also revealed that it will be for the first time this year when a Romanian Prosecutor General will be launching a book at Bookfest. Augustin Lazar is to present his book “Conflict of interest”.

The president of the editors’ association also disclosed that the USA will be the guest of honour next year. “It’s an important strategic project. We are very happy that ambassador Hans Klemm and the American embassy’ staff have agreed to be the guest of honour in 2018,” Arsene said.

At the same time, he announced that a new tradition will be enforced as of this year, namely that Bookfest should be opened in an event attended by at least three ambassadors, representing the country that was the guest of honour last year, the state which is the guest at the present edition and the one who is going to be the next guest of honour. “So, I hope the opening event next week on Wednesday to be attended by Israeli ambassador, Tamar Samash, the Swedish ambassador Anneli Lindahl Kenny and the US ambassador Hans Klemm.”