News

/ 12 April 2015

A hard day's night

Day three of Literatur&Wein saw five Versopolis poets present themselves to the festival public.

When we started the festival in 1999 it consisted "only" of a Saturday evening programme consisting of readings and music and of a Sunday lunchtime matinee.

Sixteen years later the festival lasts four days and consists of nine single events (up to 2014 it had been maximum six events altogether).

This year Saturday consisted of six events – needless to say that the organizers were a bit nervous if everything would work … and how it did!

The marathon started at 10.30 a.m. at Literaturhaus NÖ with readings and discussions on the topic "How we live. How do we live?" At the same five Versopolis-poets went on stage at atelier funkundkueste. It was so great to listen to Krystyna Dąbrowska (Poland), Vladimir Martinovski (Macedonia), Katja Perat (Slovenia), Vytautas Stankus (Lithuania) and Mária Ferenčuhová (Slovakia) reading their poems in their native languages.

At one o’clock the five poets met some Austrian publishers at arte-Hotel Krems to talk and discuss about opportunities of being published in Austria.

At the same atelier funkundkueste saw another reading of poetry with Austrian Versopolis-poet Christoph W. Bauer being on stage among others.

More than fifty people took part at "Literature & Walking" with a small trip through the vineyards surrounding Krems and a final reading by Austrian writer Erwin Einzinger. And of course there was some excellent wine to be tasted!

Well, and at six o’clock on time everyone was back at monastery Göttweig again to enjoy another six hours of excellent programme. Among the authors were three Austrian writers (Gertraud Klemm, Robert Seethaler and Daniel Glattauer) as well as Nino Haratischwili from Georgian Republic and Jens Steiner from Switzerland, who will be Writer-in-Residence in Krems till middle of May.

And to make it even more international the music came from Ukraine. The band Hudaki Village Band from Nyzhnye Selyshche (www.hudaki.org), consisting of nine excellent musicians, nearly whirled the audience into dance!

Related

more news