"European childhood" - European Night of Literature

The European Night of Literature is a unique cultural event that celebrates the best of contemporary European literature. This year’s theme, "European Childhood," highlights stories from 11 countries, each exploring the nuances of growing up in Europe. The featured works, written by celebrated authors, reflect on societal dynamics, family challenges, and nostalgic memories.

To convey the distinct character of each story, readings will be performed by well-known Israeli actors such as Adi Gilat, Alon Friedman, Liron Ben-Shlush, and Yiftach Klein.Additionally, the event includes an accompanying program of short movie screenings and a discussion panel with contemporary Israeli writers Avihai Nizri and Tamar Hochstadter.

At the opening, we will hold a light welcome cocktail on the rooftop of the Liebling Haus.

September 12 at 7 PM, free entry

Simona Bohatá will represent Czech Republic together with her book "Máňa a my druzí"

Simona Bohatá (*1965) was born in Prague, grew up in Žižkov. After secondary school of economics, she studied at the conservatory, majoring in text and screenwriting. She worked in a travel agency, in the National Library and in private companies. Before becoming a writer, she wrote "in a drawer" for years. She captured her childhood and adolescence in her first book "Máňa a mi druzí" (2017). After that, she published the novella "Všichni sou trapný" (2019), loosely following this novella, the Novel "Klikař Beny" (2021), that was nominated for Magnesia Litera, she also published the short story collection Cowardly Heroes (2023). Czech Radio presented some of her short stories. She is the co-author of the Czech short story anthology The Book of Prague (2023), published in Great Britain, also suitable for the short story anthology Krvavý Žižkov. Currently, the publishing house Host is preparing for publication her next book of short stories, which will also be published in newspapers. He has also been writing song lyrics since he was young, and recently also poems, while also working on a sequel to his first work.

Other European writers 

Anne Berest is a celebrated French author and screenwriter. She gained international recognition with her novel "The Postcard," which has been praised for its emotional depth and historical accuracy. Berest co-authored the bestseller "How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are" and has written several other acclaimed books, including "Gabriële," co-written with her sister Claire Berest. Her works often explore themes of identity, memory, and the complexities of family history. Berest lives in Paris with her family and continues to contribute significantly to contemporary French literature.

Lena Gorelik, born in 1981 in St. Petersburg, came to Germany in 1992 with her parents. Her debut novel Meine weißen Nächte (2004) brought her into the limelight, her second novel Hochzeit in Jerusalem (2007) was nominated for the German Book Prize. Her novel Die Listensammlerin (2013) was distinguished by the Stiftung Ravensburger Verlag. Null bis unendlich was published in 2015, the much-praised novel Mehr Schwarz als Lila from 2017 was nominated for the German Book Prize for Young Adult Books. In 2022 Gorelik received the Literature Prize Text & Sprache for Wer wir sind, in 2023 she was awarded the Marieluise Fleißer Prize. Lena Gorelik lives in Munich with her family.

Yannis Palavos was born in 1980 in Volvados, Kozani (Northern Greece). He studied at the University of Thessaloniki at the Faculty of Journalism and at the University of Athens at the Faculty of Cultural Assets Management. He wrote a collection of short stories "True Love and Other Stories" (Intro Books Publishing House, 2007) and "The Joke" (Nafli Publishing House, 2012) which won the Government Short Story Award and also the Digital Magazine "The Reader" Short Story Award. In addition, he co-wrote with Tassos Zafiriadis the comics "The Corpse" (published by Jemma Press, 2011) and "Gra-gro" (published by Icarus, 2017), illustrated by Thanasis Petro. The comic "Gra-Gro" won the award for comics and screenplay at the Greek Comics Festival. He has translated the works of writers Tobias Wolff, Flannery O'Connor, William Faulkner and Brice DJ Pancake.

Virginija Kulvinskaitė is a writer and literary critic. She is the author of three books – the poetry collection Antrininkė (Doppelganger, 2017, Naujas vardas), the novel kai aš buvau malalietka (when i was a malalietka, 2019, Kitos knygos), and the short story collection Keturi (Four, 2023, Kitos knygos). Her writing has been translated into English, German, French, Russian, Latvian, Belarussian and Ukrainian.

Elvira Navarro won the Community of Madrid’s Young Writers Award in 2004. She is the author of The City in Winter and The Happy City, which received the Jaén Literary Award for Fiction and the Tormenta Award for best new author, and was selected as one of the books of the year by Culturas, the arts and culture supplement of the Spanish newspaper Público. Granta named her one of their top Spanish writers under the age of thirty-five. She contributes to cultural magazines such as El Mundo newspaper’s El Cultural, Ínsula, Letras Libres, Quimera, Turia, and Calle 20, and to the newspapers Público and El País. She writes literary reviews for Qué Leer and contributions for the blog La Tormenta en un Vaso. She also teaches creative writing.

Szczepan Twardoch (born 1979) – one of the most respected contemporary Polish writers. He is the author of famous, best-selling novels i.a. Morphine (2012), Drach (2014), King of Warsaw (2016), Kingdom (2018), Pokora (2020), Chołod (2022) and Byk (2022) - the first work written by Twardoch with the theater stage in mind. The above-mentioned titles sold a total circulation of over 1 million copies. He is the recipient of numerous honors for his work, including the Brücke Berlin Preis, Le Prix du Livre Européen and Nike Literary Award: Audience Award.

©Zuza Krajewska Warsaw Creatives

Filip Florian is one of the aesthetes of the new wave of Romanian prose writers. Between 1990 and 1999 he worked as a journalist for Cuvântul magazine and then as a radio correspondent for Free Europe and Deutsche Welle. His first novel, Little Fingers (2005), won a number of awards. In 2006 he and his brother, Matei Florian, published an autobiographical novel, The Băiuț Alley Lads. Both titles are now in their fourth editions. His latest novel, All the Owls (2012), won the Book of the Year Award in the fiction section at Romania's second Bun de Tipar (“Imprimatur”) Gala. His books have been translated into more than ten languages and are published by Houghton Mifflin-Harcourt (USA), Suhrkamp (Germany), Acantilado (Spain), Fazi (Italy), Magveto and Bookart (Hungary), Czarne (Poland), Didakta (Slovenia), Ciela and Panorama (Bulgaria), Kalligram (Slovakia), University of Plymouth Press (UK), and Animar (Egypt).

Matei Florian made his literary debut in 1997, publishing a number of poems in Cuvântul magazine. In 1998, he became a reporter for Dilema magazine (now renamed Dilema Veche), for which he later started writing his own regular column. He has contributed with reportages, literary reviews and short plays to the cultural press and radio. In 2008, he was awarded the Music Criticism Prize at the Gala of Romanian Cultural Journalism. His debut as a novelist was The Băiuţ Alley Lads, co-written with his brother, Filip Florian. The novel was greeted with critical acclaim and was a great success with the Romanian reading public. The book’s Romanian success also piqued the interest of a number of European publishing houses, and it is in press in Poland (Czarne), Spain (Acantilado) and Bulgaria (Panorama+) and other countries.

The novel Both Hams And Regretel, published in 2009, has reconfirmed Matei Florian’s literary talent, and has been widely praised in the Romanian cultural sphere.

Peter Handke, who was born in 1942 in Griffen, Austria, is an Austrian translator, poet, playwright and writer. He originally studied in a Catholic seminary to become a priest, but he later quit and went to grammar school, from where he continued to law school, where he became interested in literary creation. His work is characterized by provocation, experimentation, as well as sensitivity to violence and authority. In 1966, he published his first work "Hornets", then for example "The Left-Handed Woman" (1967), "The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick" (1970), or became famous for having participated in the script for the film "Wings of Desire" (1987). He is also the recipient of several important prizes - in 2009 he was awarded the Franz Kafka Literary Prize, in 2014 he received the International Ibsen Prize and in 2019 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

He moved several times during his life, namely to Berlin, Salzburg or Paris. He currently lives near Paris.