ELN 2022: Literature in Times of Peace and War
Romanian-American poet Claudia Serea joins fellow writers, translators and performers from Austria, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland and Portugal for a special edition of the European Literature Night, hosted by the Ukrainian Institute of America, which will offer expressive proofs that muses are not silenced by guns. Claudia will present fragments from her latest prose poems volume, the much-praised Writing on the Walls at Night (Unsolicited Press, 2022), in which she uses surrealism, irony, and black humor to express her experiences from growing up behind the Iron Curtain to emigrating to New York City.
The event is produced by Czech Center New York and EUNIC New York and will take place at the Ukrainian Institute of America (UIA) on November 16. Free entry, please register HERE.
European Literature Night 2022 will feature 11 European authors, translators and performers, introduced through a series of readings and discussions. The main panel with the topic "Peace and Literature" will be moderated by Andrew Singer from Trafika Europe Radio.
PROGRAM:
5:30 PM - Doors open
6:00-6:15 PM - Opening remarks by Czech Center New York (CC NY), Ukrainian Institute of America (UIA) and Ambassador Silvio Gonzato, Deputy Head of the European Union Delegation to the United Nations
6:15-7:15 PM - Panel Discussion "Peace and Literature", moderated by Andrew Singer, Director and Editor in Chief of Trafika Europe, Europe’s literary radio station
7:15-7:30 PM - Break
7:30-9:30 PM - Readings: Claudia Serea will read between 7:30 PM and 8:30 PM
9:45-10:15 - Final gathering
10:15 PM - End of the event
The 2022 lineup of European Literature Night includes authors Bianca Bellová (Czech Republic), Krystyna Dąbrowska (Poland), Raphaela Edelbauer (Austria), Olivier Guez (France), Sándor Jászberényi (Hungary), Nora Krug (Germany), Askold Melnyczuk (Ukraine), Claudia Serea (Romania), Ilmar Taska (Estonia), and translator Birutė Vaičjurgis Šležas (Lithuania). Members of NYC-based Saudade Theatre will perform a reading of works by José Saramago (Portugal). The panel is moderated by Andrew Singer, director and editor in chief of Trafika Europe.
Claudia Serea is a Romanian-born poet with poems and translations published in Field, New Letters, Prairie Schooner, The Malahat Review, The Puritan, Oxford Poetry, Asymptote, and elsewhere. She is the author of six poetry collections and four chapbooks, most recently Writing on the Walls at Night (Unsolicited Press, 2022). She is the recipient of the Joanne Scott Kennedy Memorial Prize from the Poetry Society of Virginia, the New Letters Readers Award, the Franklin-Christoph Merit Award, as well as several honorable mentions and short-lists for her poems and books. Her poems have been translated in Russian, French, Italian, Arabic, Turkish, and Farsi, and have been featured on The Writer’s Almanac. Her collection of selected poems translated into Arabic, Tonight I’ll Become a Lake into which You’ll Sink, was published in Cairo, Egypt, in 2021. She is a founding editor of National Translation Month, serves on the editorial board of The Red Wheelbarrow Poets, and is one of the curators of the Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Readings.
In Writing on the Walls at Night, Claudia Serea conjures history through nightmares, folk tales, and dreams, remembers war and oppression in Romania through the eyes of a child, and escapes to a metropolis as strange as the past she carries with her. These poems are the magical beans the reader will use to escape again and again, discovering hidden meanings with each new reading.
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