International Novi Sad Literature Festival

This is a literature festival featuring poets and critics who represent and promote contemporary literature. More than 950 writers from Serbia and abroad participated in the previous fifteen festivals, and the impressions of all the participants were very good. They were all satisfied with their stay in Novi Sad and the programme of the Festival (participants from France, England, Ireland, Germany, Mexico, Colombia, Bulgaria, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Hungary, Sweden, Italy, Luxemburg, Czech Republic, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Montenegro, Romania, Turkey, Sudan, Denmark, Nigeria, Syria, Morocco, Croatia, Republika Srpska etc.).

The programme of the festival includes afternoon and evening readings and discussions at various venues throughout the city, as well as visiting other towns in Serbia. The readings represent national literatures, groups of authors or single authors. The main event is the evening reading on Trg mladenaca square in the city center, in front of the Poetry Gate. Every year, a symposium is held to discuss important contemporary literary themes.

For the tenth time, there is a guest of the festival for the purpose of more complete representation of contemporary poetry of one country. The participants will visit the monasteries on Fruška Gora (a mountain near Novi Sad).

Novi Sad is the capital of the Province of Vojvodina and the second biggest city in Serbia. Its population is over 450 000. It is an important economic, culture and university center. The center of the city was built during the 18th and 19th century, and on the opposite bank of the Danube, there is a magnificent fortress built in the 17th century. In Novi Sad, besides ethnic Serb majority, there are representatives of several ethnic groups, the biggest of which are Hungarians. They too have educational, cultural and informative institutions.

During the festival, a ceremony of awarding the prize to the Young Serbian poet of the Year will be held in Sremski Karlovci.

Every year, International Literary Award Novi Sad is given to a world-renowned living poet for his poetic oeuvre or life achievement in the field of poetry (Christoph Meckel, Jean-Pierre Faye, Ben Okri, Sean O Brien, Lyubomir Levchev, Kathrin Schmidt, Krzysztof Karasek, Mircea Cartarescu, Antonio Deltoro, Guy Goffette, Thomas Boberg etc.).