Radu Vancu at World Voices Festival

One of Romania’s most compelling literary voices is coming to the U.S., and he’s bringing poetry that resonates across borders and generations. With our support, poet and scholar Radu Vancu takes part in this year’s PEN America World Voices Festival, joining a standout panel dedicated to the art of dialogue in contemporary poetry. In a conversation with acclaimed poet Dunya Mikhail, moderated by poet and translator Nancy Naomi Carlson, Vancu will explore how poetry becomes a space of exchange—between writers, cultures, languages, and forms.

Radu Vancu (Sibiu, Romania, 1978) is a Romanian poet, novelist, scholar, and translator. Between 2019 and 2023, he has served as president of PEN Romania. He works as a professor at the Faculty of Letters and Arts at the „Lucian Blaga” University from Sibiu. He is editor-in-chief of the Transilvania magazine – and also an editor of the Poesis International magazine. He was the national editor…