October, 16th until 26th: Armenia

Foreword by Hasmik Poghosyan, Minister of Culture of the Republic of Armenia

There are projects, the implementation of which is not only very important, but also particularly interesting. One of them is the "Literary Ark". This program started as far back as 2001 and after ten years of break, the restart of the same projects testifies its necessity, importance and significance.
The continuation of this project "Literary Ark 2011", devoted to the literature and the book, was brought to life on the eve of 2012 and 2012 is a dual literary year for our people: we are celebrating the 500th Anniversary of Armenian Printing (the head of the jubilee committee is the RA president Serzh Sargsyan) and in the same year UNESCO announced Yerevan as World Book Capital.
On the treshold of the literary year, Armenia hosted writers representing literary polyphony of Europe, who saw Armenia, continuing its century-long march on the border of Asia and Europe, who saw Armenian, its traditons and culture, nowadays life, and discussed the problems of modern literature and culture.
Our country with its ancient history and century - long culture has never left its visitor indifferent. Inspired by Armenia, many writers have written books, painters have created canvases, music has been written, and poetry has been dedicated. We believed Armenia would also attract our European guests by its beauty and colorful traditions and that wouldn't remain without consequences. Today their ideas, impressions, literary digressions are represented in a collection, which we are delighted to introduce to you. (See the book: "Literary Ark 2011" - ISBN 978-99941-938-8-2)

On the evening of October 21st, Filip Van Zandycke wrote, at the lobby of the Dilijian hotel, a short story / a fairytale "The children's boo-man". This tale was written for, read to and dedicated at the children of Tumanyan's village in Armenia.

The story can be downloaded HERE