For more than fifteen years the festival has established itself as one of the most recognizable cultural events in Bulgaria with international participation and significance. It presents current processes in contemporary literature and art offering them to the public in an accessible and multifaceted format – through meetings, discussions, literature, theatre, music and visual arts.

It combines the freedom of creative expression with the atmosphere of an alternative space – the Canetti House, a building with a rich history and significance for Ruse filled with memories of Bulgaria’s only Nobel Prize winner for literature, Elias Canetti.

This year the festival will be held for the eighteenth time with the motto “POLYLOG. OVERCOMING THE PRESENT.” The title refers to texts and authors who explore the challenges of the present day and seek a bridge between fiction and reality, utopia and dystopia, desire and will.

This year’s focus is on the latest edition of the Elias Canetti National Literary Award with special attention being paid to the nominated authors and their presentations in Ruse and other cities across the country.

In the modern digital age and parallel worlds the festival once again brings together Bulgarian and European writers to affirm their moral responsibility to the space-time of the present – HERE and NOW.