Writers Mircea Cartarescu, Irina Turcanu and Andreea Simionel are participating in the 23rd edition of the Pisa Book Festival, a cultural event taking place from 2 to 5 October, with Romania being guest of honour country.

According to a press release the Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR) sent to AGERPRES on Wednesday, the Pisa literary festival, dedicated to independent publishing houses, has been organised for over two decades in the historic Italian city and will feature a rich programme of book presentations and debates on literary, philosophical and historical topics.

Romania's programme, as guest of honour, is held under the patronage of the Embassy of Romania to Italy, Malta and San Marino.

'Organised in buildings emblematic of the city's history, the Arsenali Repubblicani, Museo delle Navi Antiche and Palazzo Reale, the Pisa Book Festival will highlight contemporary Romanian literature through a programme in which Romanian guest authors will engage in dialogue with Italian writers and journalists, and answer to questions from the audience on the condition of the contemporary literary creator and on their works translated into Italian. On the same occasion, the venues hosting the writer dialogues will exhibit Italian translations of the invited Romanian authors' works, released by Italian publishers with support from the Romanian Cultural Institute's Translation and Publication Support Programme (TPS), or on the initiative of independent Italian publishers,' the press release reads.

Writer Mircea Cartarescu will open the programme on Thursday at 18:30, in the Auditorium of Museo delle Navi Antiche, alongside professor and translator Bruno Mazzoni, and will meet the public again in the same venue on Friday at 17:00, in a dialogue with Mazzoni titled 'The Writer's Creative Laboratory, from the Orbitor (Blinding) Trilogy to Theodoros.'

On Friday at 18:00, also in the Auditorium of Museo delle Navi Antiche, professors Emilia David and Eva Marinai, along with Professor Dan Octavian Cepraga, will present to the audience the works of playwright Matei Visniec published in Italian, starting from the volume 'Vecchio clown cercasi,' ETS Publishing House, Pisa, 2025, the Italian translation of the well-known play 'Old Clown Wanted.'

On Saturday at 16:00, in the same auditorium, writer Irina Turcanu, a member of the Romanian diaspora in Italy, will engage in a discussion with journalist Francesca Franceschi about her creative work and her experience as a foreign-born naturalised author in Italy, starting from her recent novel 'Manca il sole ma si sta bene lo stesso,' Marsilio Publishing House, Venice, 2024.

Also on Saturday, Swiss writer of Romanian origin Eugene Meiltz, in conversation with translator Alessandra Repossi, will present his novel 'Lettera al mio dittatore' to the public at 12:00, in the Auditorium of Museo delle Navi Antiche. Published by Bottega Errante, Udine, 2025, the novel is written in the form of an ironic epistolary narrative, aiming to help readers understand, through the lens of the author's personal experience, the hardships of life in Romania during Ceausescu's dictatorship.

On Sunday at 12:00, also in the Auditorium of Museo delle Navi Antiche, Andreea Simionel, a writer from the Romanian diaspora in Italy, will engage in dialogue with Italian journalist and writer Paolo Ciampi, author of 'Non è il paese di Dracula' (Bottega Errante, Udine, 2024), about her recent novel 'Male a est,' published by Italo Svevo, Trieste, 2022. The novel explores the uprootedness of young people raised and educated far from their homeland, the estrangement from close family and childhood friends, and the sense of detachment from the familiar world of their early years. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Georgiana Tanasescu; EN - writing by: Adina Panaitescu)