On the evening before the opening of the festival the famous Bulgarian theatre company „36 Monkeys – ProText“ staged the play Praechidno in the Canetti House. „We can do all we want as long as it is of little importance. On all matters of greater importance however, the system determines our behavior.“, so writes Ted Kaczynski in his manifesto “Industrial Society and It’s Future”. Kaczynski is a mathematician, social critic, genius and a terrorist who remained in history with the nickname Unabom. His personal story and convictions are the basis for one of the main threads in this play. Another thread is dedicated to the western long-beaked echidna – a strange, rare, ancient animal, which turned out to be a dead end in evolution. Director: Gergana Dimitrova, live music performance and music composer: Sergei Glinkov – lowhum, live video and video mix: Vladislav Iliev, Ljubomir Draganov – Phormatik Visual Lab, scenography and costumes: Elena Shopova, actors: Elena Atanasova, Nadezhda Panajotova, Petar Meltev, Bogdan Kazandzhiev, assistent: Petko Stojanov.

Micul Dejun alias Paul Jeute has worked as „waste paper merchant, bell ringer, candle lighter, prop builder, in museum, as German teacher and as a journalist“ in Germany, Romania and the Czech Republic. He is a globetrotter and wanderer – in 2009 came out his volume of poetry stay punk stay free stay gipsy (Schiller-Verlag) with verses and thoughts inspired by his long journeys through Romania, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Georgia, Hungary, the Ukraine and his hometown – Dresden. The punk poet Micul Dejun was born in Dresden in 1981, he lives and works in Dresden and Hermannstadt. On the 11 of May he read excerpts from his book stay punk, stay free, stay gipsy in gallery Prijateli.

The writer Anna Tuene (1950) has studied Philosophy and Roman Studies. She has been working for 25 years as a writer and freelance cultural manager and project manager. On the 12th of May she read some excerpts from her work The Restoration of Happiness. The novel tells the unusual story of the childhood of a German girl in France after the war. Students from the German School in Ruse read excerpts from the book, translated into Bulgarian.

Kristin Dimitrova (1963) is a famous Bulgarian writer and poet. One of her prosa works is the novel Sabazius for which she received the national literature prize Hristo G.Danov in 2008. The collected short stories Love and Death under the Crooked Pear Trees was nominated for the Helicon Prize, as was also her book The Secret Way of the Ink. Her poems and short stories have been released in 24 countries throughout the world and translated in 20 different languages. At present Kristin Dimitrova participates in the international project for literature „Journey Across Europe“.

Angel Igov was born in 1981 in Sofia. After he graduated from school he studied English Philology and Literature. His published works include the collected short stories Sreshti na putia (Meetings on the Way) and K. The first book received the special prize for prose in 2003 on the national literature competition „Juzhna prolet“. As a journalist he often writes articles for different Bulgarian media and also works for literature magazines.

One of the famous poets in Ruse – Mira Dushkova read some of her works in gallery Prijateli.

Ovidiu Dunăreanu is a Romanian writer. His book Fairy tales from the Year of the Snake will be published in the series „New Europe“ in the Elias Canetti Publishing House. Students from the Elias Canetti Gymnasium read excerpts from this book in Bulgarian translation.

Radostina Patulova is a philosopher and works in Austria as a cultural mediator, as well as in the sphere of adult education. At present she is a cooperator in the international society Kultur Österreich for the project „fields of TRANSFER“. In gallery Prijateli she read a lecture on the topic Economics of Knowledge.

Radka Denemarková is a famous award-winning Czech writer, translator and journalist. She studied German and Bohemian Studies at the Karls-University in Prague and received a PhD there in 1997. Apart from her scientific work, she is also an author and a critic. For her book Peníze Od Hitlera (Money from Hitler) she received in 2007 the Czech Magnesia Litera Prize for prose. The book tells the fictional story of the German Jewish girl Gita Lauschmannová, who has lived through the terrors of Auschwitz and after the end of World War II comes back to her village in Germany. There the Czech population treats her with hostility as a German.

Apart from the public events during the Literary Parlour, on the 14th and on the 15th of May we organized internal translation workshops and meetings as part of the project „Journey Across Europe“. Coordinators and translators from Germany, The Czech Republic, Macedonia and Bulgaria took part in the events. The Elias Canetti Society is a partner of the two-year international literary project.

The Literary Spring Parlour is an event of the International Elias Canetti Society. It is realized with the financial support of Goethe-Institut Bulgaria, The Robert Bosch Stiftung, The Ruse Municipality, The Czech Centre Sofia, The European Commission (Cultural program 2007-2013) and Art Office Sofia. We would also like to thank The University of Ruse (BRIE), gallery Prijateli, Café Ruschuk, The German School in Ruse and the Elias Canetti Gymnasium in Ruse for the organizational support.