MINSK, 6 February (BelTA) - The international symposium of writers is a platform of peacefulness and good neighborliness, Belarus' Information Minister Aleksandr Karlyukevich said as he opened the writers' symposium “The Writer and Time: Literature as Part of Cultural Dialogue” on the sidelines of the 26th Minsk International Book Fair on 6 February.
“The writers' symposium is a platform of peacefulness and good neighborliness. This theme is highlighted at the biggest forums in Belarus today. Belarusians know the value of peace. Many generations of those who have lived in the most dramatic periods of history remind us that this is the most important value of human life,” Aleksandr Karlyukevich said.
The program of the event is defined by its name “The Writer and Time: Literature as Part of Cultural Dialogue”. The meeting is attended by prose writers, poets, poets, publicists, literary scholars, translators from 20 countries. The program includes plenary sessions, roundtables, seminars, meetings with university students of Minsk, literary evenings.
“I would like to thank all those who came to attend the symposium this year, who was preparing for this event during the year, those who helped the Belarusian literature and the Union of Writers of Belarus to make sure that Belarusian literature would tell about our people in other countries, in other national literature," the minister said. “We are particularly pleased to see ambassadors here of those states whose writers came to the symposium,” he added.
Over the years, the symposium has by right become an intellectual platform to discuss pressing issues of humanitarian and cultural cooperation between representatives of different countries. Its organizers are the Information Ministry, the Union of Writers of Belarus, the Zvyazda publishing house and the Mastatskaya Litaratura publishing house.
