Professor Bruno Mazzoni, one of the greatest supporters of Romanian literature in Italy, said on Saturday that Romanian literature is witnessing an 'admirable effervescence', noting the very large number of translations of Romanian writers that appear abroad.

'I see an admirable effervescence in Romanian culture and literature, because, even after the 2000s, all kinds of quality writers asserted themselves and, not by chance, with the translation programmes of the Romanian Cultural Institute, they began to circulate everywhere. I can't say exactly a figure, but I think that almost 8,000 titles have been published abroad in the last 20 years, which is really a performance. Before, in Italy, if four or five books of Romanian literature were published in a year, it was already a special thing. Of course, in France maybe more were published, there it was an older tradition, related to the presence of Romanian writers in exile. Fortunately, not only in Italy, now also in Spain and in Germany and in Sweden and elsewhere there are a lot of publishing houses that have discovered Romanian literature. And I think that is a very good thing for your culture and for Romanian writers,' Mazzoni told AGERPRES.

He mentioned a series of meetings with Romanian writers he had at Bookfest. 'I met Mircea Cartarescu, Bogdan Cretu, Pavel Susara and Caius Dobrescu, Professor Mircea Martin, many people I have known from the last 30 years,' said the professor.

Currently, Mazzoni is working on a translation of Mircea Cartarescu's poems, 'for a large publishing house in Italy', plus 'Texistanta' 'the book launched by Cartarescu at Bookfest'.

Professor of Romanian language and literature at the Department of Philology, Literature and Linguistics of the University of Pisa, Bruno Mazzoni holds honorary doctorates from the University of Bucharest and the Vest University of Timisoara.

He is the 2005 recipient of a translation award by the President of Italy. He has translated into Italian several works by Mircea Cartarescu, Ana Blandiana, Max Blecher, Herta Muller and Catalin Pavel and has published studies on Tudor Arghezi, Ion Barbu, and Nichita Stanescu.

On Thursday, Mazzoni was awarded the Eugen Lovinescu Prize for the promotion of the Romanian language and literature abroad for the year 2025, awarded by the Museum of Romanian Literature. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Daniel Popescu; EN - writing by: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu)