Workshop for Balkan Authors and Translators

Prominent authors and thinkers from throughout the region participated in the eight-day event, which was enthusiastically supported by the people and government of the Prefecture of Evros. Greeks, Serbs, Romanians, Bulgarians, Turks, Albanians and representatives of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia joined in the proceedings, which began with an unusually productive two-day public panel discussion followed by commentary and dialogue with the audience. The main objective of these discussion and dialogue was to increase mutual awareness on the part of individual states about prevailing conditions in the Balkan book world and the prospects for growth throughout the region since the recent social and economic transformations affecting Greece's neighbours. There was much mention of the potential for developing the market for the works of Greeks and other Balkan writers in translation and of how doing so would raise the level of cultural consciousness and understanding among the people of the peninsula.