Festival of Hope, organised by European Poetry Platform Versopolis that makes opportunities for emerging poets, and supported by the Commission’s Creative Europe programme, will keep “open” its doors until mid-June.

Haruki Murakami, one of Japan’s most acclaimed novelists, will host a radio special to try to lift the nation’s spirits as the state of emergency over the novel coronavirus continues.

To get immersed in an alien world and make friends with it, to experience the deep emotions, suffering, the hopes and dreams of other people, to become absorbed by the beauty and greatness of the Word, is a spiritual adventure and delight for the soul which at least to a certain extent saves us from this compulsory isolation and the surging fears, says writer Vladimir Zarev in an interview to Monitor.

The acclaimed Chilean writer Luis Sepulveda has died at a hospital in northern Spain some six weeks after testing positive for coronavirus, his publishing house said on Thursday. He was 70.

Books reflect reality. Sometimes they even predict future reality. In times of uncertainty literature provides not only escape and companionship, but serves as a consolation and a guide. There were many plagues and pandemics during the centuries, and some of them have served as an inspiration to writers either to describe in an art manner the interaction between disease and humans, or to lay down a possible future on paper. But all of them certainly show that the human kind has passed through this before and has survived.

Bulgarian poetess Aksinia Mihaylova won France's prestigious national award for poetry Prix Max Jacob 2020. She received the prize for her collection of poems Le baiser du temps (The Kiss of Time). “At last, good news comes in these sad and insecure days,” Mihaylova wrote on Facebook and added that the awarding ceremony which had to take place in the Centre National du Livre was cancelled due to the declared state of emergency and quarantine imposed because of the coronavirus.  

They say that poets are prophets. At the onset of 2020 we are talking with poet Boiko Lambovski about the future and the chances for restoring the wholeness of the world. Whether poetry is sometimes more real than the reality in which we are living? And if poetry is not an escape, could then our eternal quests be the way out? Poetry is a part of the literary history and of civilisation, but it is also part of our inner yearning, says Bulgarian poet Boiko Lambovski in an interview to ArtSofia.bg.

The world we are leaving to the younger generations is not in good shape and they will have to save it. And they will. Yes, I am optimistic, says Andrea di Robilant, Italian journalist and writer, in an interview to Europost.

Boy Erased gave me a convenient metaphor to talk about sexuality and religion because so much of what was happening to me was a kind of erasure - to say “You don't exist as a gay man, you can't be a gay man because gay people don't exist.”, says Garrard Conley in an interview to Eropost.

At that stage of life, poetry is a force of nature that takes over your entire being, a daily exploration, a metaphorical cyclone, a painful struggle to create your own, instantly-distinguishable and unique poetic world. No mercy!, says poetess Mirela Ivanova in an interview to Europost.