• Travel
• Aims
• Phases
• Outcomes

Project

Word Express is a project for literary exchange in South-East Europe, organised by the UK-based Literature Across Frontiers in cooperation with Delta Publishing in Istanbul, Profil Books in Zagreb, Helicon in Tel Aviv and the National Book Centre in Bucharest and other partners based in twelve countries in the region. The project is part of the EU-supported Literature Across Frontiers Programme and of the British Council’s Creative Collaboration Programme which aims to enrich the cultural life of Europe and its surrounding countries and to build trust and understanding across communities by generating dialogue and debate.

In a region marked with past and present conflicts, Word Express aims to cross cultural and linguistic boundaries and bring new literary voices of the region to the fore. Some fifty young authors and translators will be eventually involved in the project, exploring the region’s cultural, social and political legacy and meeting their colleagues from the participating countries.

In October 2009, twenty of these writers writers and translators formed three groups taking train journeys through the Balkans to Istanbul, stopping in different cities and taking part in readings, debates and translation workshops. At the journey's end they spent five days in Istanbul taking part in the Istanbul Book Fair and in the new Istanbul Tanpinar Literature Festival, as well as reading and debating in other venues.

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