The Ján Smrek Festival begins

Poets from Argentina, Bulgaria, Germany, Norway, Austria and Slovakia will take part in the Ján Smrek Festival, which starts today, Tuesday 20 September. At its opening event in the Nedbalka Gallery at 5 p.m., the organisers of the festival will present the Ján Smrek Award 2O21 to the German poet Richard Pietrass. This according to Branislav Slyško, President of the Slovak Centre of the PEN writers' association, which has been organising the festival since 2018. The festival will last until Thursday, 22 September, and in addition to the capital city, will also take place in Trnava and Senec. "The festival will also include discussions between the authors and students of grammar schools in Trnava and Senec," the festival's director, poet and translator Milan Richter, told media. The 14th edition of the Ján Smrek Festival will culminate on Thursday, 22 September, with an author's reading at the Austrian Cultural Forum in Bratislava, where Helmuth A. Niederle, Richard Pietrass, Nadja Popova, Mária Bátorová, Knut Odegard and Ján Zambor will conclude the event at 5 p.m. with excerpts from their poems. "A collection of poems in Slovak by all authors will be given to the audience free of charge," the organisers announce. Ján Smrek was a popular Slovak poet, writer and editor. He is one of the most important personalities of Slovak literature in the 20th century.