The Club of Bulgarian Women and Families in Hamburg is actively preparing for the Second Festival of Bulgarian Literature. The event is planned for July 13 and this year's festival is organized with the support of the Executive Agency for Bulgarians Abroad and the Confederation of Bulgarian Cultural Organizations and Activists Abroad.

The participants who received awards in 2024 in the annual literary competition of the Bulgarians in Hamburg will be presented at the festival, we learn from Emilia Juker, chair of the Club of Bulgarian Women and Families in this German city.

"For people, communicating with Bulgarian literature is a very important factor - to feel good, with a good text, with good literature, with good ideas,” she points out. “We have decided to pay respect for the second time to the Bulgarian authors and these who write in Bulgarian in a nice place in the center of Hamburg (Dorothea Strasse - 174), where more people can gather. Everyone who wants will have the opportunity to receive books. We have authors who have sent us books for which we would like to thank. The way the festival is held is based on the results of the annual literature competition of the Bulgarians in Hamburg. In addition, at this festival we present Bulgarian authors with their latest works, so that people can hear excerpts of their works and have their books. We also provide the books that various authors have sent us during the year."

The authors will be present at the festival in Hamburg mainly through their books, but there are also those who will come to the place - Bulgarian writers from Berlin and Hamburg in Germany, but also from Belgium. It is an interesting approach that the books will be presented by the Bulgarians in Hamburg, who have prepared for this. There will also be a theatrical performance - Marinela Filipova will read works by Damyan Damyanov and other Bulgarian classics. "With this, we believe that we are strengthening the local Bulgarian community and providing an opportunity for cooperation between authors who carry the Bulgarian thinking and who are most valuable for us, for the preservation of the Bulgarian language. In this way, the local people who are in Hamburg can preserve the artistic and literary Bulgarian language, as a factor for communication," Emilia Juker says. The event is also promoted by the Bulgarian school in Hamburg, so it is interesting to what extent children are the focus group of this celebration of the Bulgarian literature in Germany?

"Of course, we present literature for different age groups. This year we will present the works for children by Lili Spasova from the Executive Agency for Bulgarians Abroad, as well as other authors who have provided their books, such as Maria Shandurkova from Bulgaria. We will also have guests from other Bulgarian organizations here - we will be together at our festival. In this sense, I want to thank everyone who will come - they will receive both books and attention," says the organizer of the Festival of Bulgarian Fiction Literature in Hamburg.

Publication in English: Al. Markov

Photos: Archive from the first edition of the festival, provided by Emilia Juker