Mutual Life and Literature

In Skopje, on March the 3^rd 2005, the Macedonian P.E.N. Centre organized a round table discussion on the subject “Mutual Life and Literature” with around 30 writers from Macedonia as participants. Professor Elizabeta Sheleva was Chair of the discussion. The goal of this gathering was - as the President of the Macedonian P.E.N. Centre, Mr. Dimitar Bashevski, said in his opening statement – to start a conversation between the writers that create in the different languages existing in Macedonia and to exchange information among them about the processes in the literatures of these languages, about certain books, about mutual publishing and getting to know each other, about the mutual participation in the literary manifestations. Further in his speech he added: “In compliance with our Charter, we, as a P.E.N. Centre, would like to give our contribution to supporting the creative work, the literary treasure that is created by the linguistic diversity, to build a mutual communication that will contribute to the nurturing of the culture of piece and tolerance and to a constant collaboration between the writer’s associations, between the authors them selves, between the readers, translators, publishers and the media.

Then, many writers joined the discussion and expressed their thoughts on the subject. The round table was concluded with a poetry reading that had its own title: “Everyone has his our own poem”.

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