Romanian poet Nora Iuga shortlisted for the European Poet of Freedom Literary Award

Romanian writer Nora Iuga was nominated, alongside another five authors, for the European Poet of Freedom Literary Award of the city of Gdansk, inform agerpres.ro.

The proposal was made by Polish translator, poet and classical philologist Enormi Stationis, a.k.a. Bartosz Radomski. The other finalists for the competition are Amina Elmi (Danish), Laima Kreivyte (Lithuanian), Luigi Nacci (Italian) and English-language poets Roger Robinson and Alicia Elsbeth Stallings, the Romanian Cultural Institute announced on Thursday.

The submissions entered in the competition include both mature poets, highly esteemed in their countries of origin, as well as exponents of the young generation, who open new thematic universes in poetry, said Barbara Sroka, acting director of the City Culture Institute in Gdansk, the organizing institution of the contest, as cited in the ICR release.

In the opinion of the jury, Nora Iuga's creation "explores and touches on deeply personal and sensitive themes".

The selection jury consisted of Anna Czekanowicz, Krzysztof Czyzewski (chair), Andrzej Jagodzinski (non-voting secretary), Cezary Lasiczka, Stanislaw Rosiek, Anda Rottenberg, Michal Rusinek, Beata Stasilska, and Olga Tokarczuk.

The winner will receive a statuette and a financial prize of 100,000 PLN, while the translator of the winning collection will receive a statuette and a prize of 20,000 PLN. The award ceremony will take place during the European Poet of Freedom Festival, to be held in Gdansk in the spring of 2026. All nominated collections will be published in late 2025 as part of the European Poet of Freedom series.

Now at its ninth edition, the competition highlights and promotes poetic phenomena that address one of the fundamental themes of contemporaneity - freedom - while also standing out through their exceptional artistic value.

At each edition, the organizers invite submissions from translators from seven European languages; at the current edition (2024 - 2026) the works of living poets who write in English, Danish and Faroese, Greek, Lithuanian, Romanian and Italian came into focus, with the jury receiving at least one proposal for each of these languages.

Nora Iuga's body of work that appeared in Polish rendition includes the novel The Sexagenarian and The Young Man, translated by Kazimierz Jurczak. The Polish version, put out by the Universitas Publishing House in Krakow, benefited from financing from the Romanian Cultural Institute through the Translation and Publication Support Programme.

The biopic "Why Is my Name Nora, When My Sky Is Clear" (directed by Carla Maria Teaha, 2023) was screened at the Sopot Literacki festival in August of this year, courtesy of the Romanian Cultural Institute in Warsaw.

In 2016, poet Ana Blandiana was graced with the European Poet of Freedom Award for her volume My A4 Homeland, translated by Joanna Kornas-Warwas.

(Fluierul)