Days of Poetry and Wine, one of the largest and most recognizable international poetry festivals in this part of Europe, which successfully combines the poetic word and the promotion of the highest quality Slovenian wines, is celebrating its 25 years. Due to the anniversary, the festival, which hosts many renowned poets from all over the world and selected local winemakers every year at the end of August, will be especially solemn this year. 35 poets from 20 countries will perform between 24th and 28th August in Ptuj and at several events that will also take place in Ljubljana, Murska Sobota, Krško, Vitomarci, Juršinci, Ljutomer, Križevci near Ljutomer, Ormož, Bele, Izola, Petanjci, Selca, Varaždin in Croatia and Potrna in Austria. The guests of honour will be Czech poet Petr Borkovec and Portuguese poet Ana Luísa Amaral. The Open letter to Europe - in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Ljubljana - will be written and read for the first time in Ptuj by German poet Durs Grünbein. The main festival focus - poetry and wine - will also be accompanied by a rich accompanying program.The festival will begin in Ljubljana with poetry readings and a translation project for young authors, as well as a meeting of directors of literary festivals of the European poetry platform Versopolis from 30 European countries. In the coming days of the festival, poetry will inhabit Ptuj and other places in Slovenia, Croatia and Austria, and literary events will be accompanied by concerts and a culinary and wine program.
This year's special feature of the festival is the new online art project Share a Light, signed by digital artists and established writers Valerie Wolf Gang, Jaka Železnikar, Aljaž Koprivnikar and Aleš Šteger. Creators from all over the world will light up and share their light on the global interactive online map of happiness and hope.
The history of the Days of Poetry and Wine festival, which this year celebrates a quarter of a century, is extremely rich. So far, the festival, which began in Medana and then moved to Ptuj in 2010, featured 400 internationally renowned poets from various countries and more than 2,000 other artists. Literary events have already featured 100,000 verses in more than 50 languages, and around 1,200 free events have been attended by more than 100,000 visitors.
More than 150 poetry collections translated from 50 languages have been published, as well as four editions of the Open Letter to Europe, each of which has been translated into 15 languages. Since 2013, the wine program of the festival has been enriched by the events of Wicked Tasting. There have been 73 poetry readings, accompanied by tastings of top wines.
“In all these years, we have been favored by muses, gods and, for the most part, the media. We recorded more than 10,000 media publications in Slovenian and foreign media, from a contribution on CNN to a report in the aviation magazine of the national Japanese airline. We are proud to be the largest and most recognizable international poetry festival in this part of Europe, but we really believe that we are just at the beginning of our journey," said Aleš Šteger, festival director.
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The festival will be held in accordance with the instructions of the national health institutions. We will notify you of the details in a timely manner.