National Library of Greece (Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center), Athens, Greece, exterior
The LEA Festival in Athens is the top cultural event in Greece focusing on the dissemination of the Latin American, Spanish and Portuguese language and literature. The festival is intended as a cultural meeting promoting reading, intercultural dialogue as well as exchange of ideas and entertainment and is usually held in June.
The Festival of Crime Fiction by the Monogram bookstore aims to support this popular genre and focuses on encouraging writers in the field of crime. Over several days in May and July, writing workshops, debates, interactive games and other creative events take place in the city of Athens. Some of the most important representatives of the genre are present at the fair.
First held in 2004, the Thessaloniki International Book Fair aims to create a new meeting point for cultural and commercial exchanges in the field of international publishing. The Thessaloniki Book Fair is the only international book fair held in Greece and attracts more than 400 book professionals from Greece and abroad. More than 65,000 people visit the fair each year in May.
The general objective of the Academy of Athens is the cultivation and advancement of the Sciences, Humanities and Fine Arts, along with the communication of the Foundation and its Members with other Academies and fellow Academicians. The Academy awards numerous prizes in the field of literature and honors mainly poetry collections and scientific treatises or studies.
The State Literary Awards are the highest literary distinction awarded to writers by the Greek state. Established in 1959, the Awards honor authors whose books have been published in the previous year. Included are the State Literary Awards for translations, children’s books as well as prizes for poetry, essays and different kinds of prose.
Initiated by the online magazine for books “Αναγνώστης” (Anagnostis), the Reader Award aims to consider the trends and concerns of modern prose and poetry. There are different judging committees for adult books and children’s books and several honored categories concerning published books in the previous year. Usually, the award ceremony takes place at the Benaki Museum.
Included are the State Literary Awards for translations and children’s books, as well as prizes for poetry, essays and different kinds of prose.
The residency in Thessaloniki is open to artists of all fields such as performing arts, visual arts, literature, or film and photography. Participants should be working on a specific project or aiming for an exchange between creatives in Greece and Germany. The artists are supervised by the Goethe-Institut in Thessaloniki, the residency usually lasts between 8 to 12 weeks.
The House of Literature in the mountain village of Lefkes, the former capital of Paros, offers ideal working conditions for writers and translators. The mission of the house is to accommodate professional writers and literary translators from all over the world, but mainly from Europe. The writers and translators can pursue their work for a minimum of 2 weeks and up to 3 months.
