Sofia Metaphors

SOFIA METAPHORS is a regular, free, international poetry festival held from 22th to 25th of September on the territory of the capital of Bulgaria - Sofia. The festival combines contemporary poetry, prose, music, visual and performing arts in a way that is accessible to a broad urban audience. The most notable and cutting-edge Bulgarian artists take part in it – from big names with years of experience, to young up-and-coming artists only now making their names. The primary focus of SOFIA METAPHORS is poetry as an art that creates connections between all other arts.

The Festival

Poets, translators and cultural managers from many European countries and from Bulgaria visit the center of Sofia. Within four days, they participate in the International Poetry Festival SOFIA METAPHORS. They hold a poetry plein air, write, translate and read to the Sofia public poems dedicated to emblematic places for our capital. The main goal of our festival is to promote abroad the cultural heritage and diversity of our capital, to promote connections and relationships between Bulgarian and European culture and art, to promote writing and reading of poetry among a young audience.

Our Goals

- To present Sofia's cultural traditions and contemporary literary life and include them in the European and global cultural process

- To promote connections and relationships between Bulgarian and European artists, to exchange experience, to discuss and plan future joint collaborations

- To support the equal participation of Bulgarian artists and cultural products on the international scene

- To expand the cultural perspective of the city, to stimulate the exchange of cultural models and practices

- To encourage the reading and writing of poetry among a youth audience

Significance

SOFIA METAPHORS is not just a poetry festival, but a platform for the creation of contemporary art. The festival is exceptionally important for the development of culture in Bulgaria, because it is seen as indicative not only of the pulse of Bulgaria’s literary and art industry, but also of a much broader sphere of institutions (the media, the Sofia Municipality, the Ministry of Culture, writers’ associations and other creative organizations), as well as of the larger public. The event is carried out with the support of program Culture at Sofia Municipality, the Czech center Sofia, the Hungarian Cultural Institute, the Polish Cultural Institute, The British Council Sofia among others. In several separate publications, the SOFIA METAPHORS Festival was identified as the most significant literary event in recent years and as one of the most significant cultural events overall.