What Our Festival

A Festival like no other. All in a wonderful palace, in a house ringing out of lives and stories like a music box. Here you will find voices in every language of Europe and further, get the lucky chance to hear the sound of mysterious Georgian. A great party of words in the heart of a beautiful, friendly and lively capital. A place to visit, to stay, to come back.

I have been to many literary festivals over the years, none more enlightening and international in scope than Tbilisi’s. It exemplified the spirited dialogue and cultural exchange we all hope to encounter on such occasions, and the warmth and generosity of the staff were unparalleled. Add to that the extraordinary, ancient and contemporary cultural landscape of Georgia itself, to which participants were given informed access, and the experience was deeply memorable.

As Georgia is the crossroads of civilizations, so the Tbilisi International Festival of Literature is the crossroads of languages. Intimate in scale, with dedicated staff and charming locations, the festival allows for transformative conversations and enlivening performances. Poetry is spoken here!

I came to Tbilisi expecting a dry literary conference of interviews and networking and instead I got my heart cracked open. I have never experienced anything like this festival, surrounded by a wild diversity of people and ideas in a city of such incredible beauty, hearing literature and poetry in a dozen different languages, reveling in a camaraderie that transcended all borders. These are memories I’ll treasure forever.

Visiting Tbilisi is visiting Poetry Heaven! Especially now, with politics living on the street, the voice of Poetry sings through the Writers House team. The International Festival celebrates the powerful history of Georgian poetry in a global context, which is exactly where it belongs! Here’s to the Blue Horn! Here’s to Free Poetry in Georgia!

The Tbilisi International Festival of Literature is a vibrant and unique event in one of the most fascinating cities on earth. It promotes Literature in the way it should be promoted: as a deep connection between peoples and cultures that transcends boundaries and sociopolitical proscriptions and foregrounds the joys of creativity and interaction. The events are engaging and alluring, the organization impeccable, the staff committed and impassioned and uniformly wonderful. I’ve attended various Literature festivals in many countries across the planet, and it’s a rare one that settles itself into the soul in the way that TIFL has in mine. It was an unforgettable, invaluable adventure.

The Festival of Literature takes place in the magical mountainous landscape covered with a labyrinth of streets and balconies. Tbilisi appeared to me as a place straight out of dreams about the city of the sun, with its own unique alphabet, language, art, cuisine, and unmatched hospitality that involves endless wine and 2 am feasts. The Writer’s House where the readings took place is an elegant, historic location that drew a large and attentive audience. I was very moved by the Red Terror tour organized by the festival. The tour took us from the sunlit streets into the places marked by great violence. Georgian culture is unlike any other, ancient and unique. Don’t miss a chance to see Pirosmani at the museum of art! Be ready to encounter many beautiful and hospitable people.

Of the 50 or so festivals I have been to, the Tbilisi International Festival of Literature was the absolute best. And there are many good festivals. TIFL has just the right combination of everything that makes literature exciting and interesting.

Nothing I write
Will come close
To what it meant
For me a vibrant a
Curious a lost an
Overwhelmed and
Overjoyed spark of
A woman roaming
These streets that
Looked like pieces
Of old and new
Fabrics sewn
Together and
Whose fringes
Were open arms
Grasping it all with
My mouth and soul
I must have looked
Like a fool or one of
Those simpletons who
Witness great miracles
To be the guest of
This bountiful
Table of this

Ephemeral yet
Bursting with life
Family of restless
Dreamers and to feel
How much it mattered
How urgent it really was
To make eye contact to
Share the unfamiliar
To talk and listen and
Aware of the nearby
Noise of the world
Devouring itself
Raw in a corner
That is what peace
Feels like I thought
Glass in my hand
Lips on my forehead
Tears on my chin
Dissolving myself in
The human substance
People from here and
There sitting at a table
Together hoping
So much louder
Than the world
Can imagine

Whenever I come to Tbilisi, I always come across with the unforeseen fifth time of the year – summer in the middle of spring and summer in the middle of fall. It’s scary to imagine what will happen if I arrive in the middle of summer… When being in interesting cities, I get the creative flow for writing poems, whereas in uninteresting cities I cannot write. It’s so incredibly interesting at the festival in Tbilisi that it’s simply a shame to waste time on them. Poetry is dreamt here. Tbilisian graffiti comes down from the walls and summons the night dogs. Dogs invite to the Thai massage in human voice. Thai masseuses appear to be bookinists and, taking advantage of my illiteracy, are selling me Georgian translations of my own poems. And I, together with all masseuses and bookinists, am getting into the minibus to see sea and mountains. The minibus gets held into a traffic jam, as there are a lot of poets at the festival in Tbilisi and each of them has their own night minibus. Then one of the drivers turns on loud music and the entire city, wine and churchkhela sellers, poets and the night dogs, sea and mountains begin to sing along and dance to it. At the exit of the minibus there’s Belarus and customs, where they take away my wine and churchkhela, sea and mountains, and even the poems I came up with in my dreams. They leave me with just this text as the customs declaration.