9th Festival Lİteraturk kicks off in october in Essen, Germany

Turkish and German literature will be under the spotlight when Festival Literaturk unrolls its 2013 edition next month in the German city of Essen. Set to run from September 1 to 9, the ninth Turkish-German literature festival will also expand to the cities of Gelsenkirchen and Dortmund, according to the organizers of the festival who held a press conference last week, the Dogan news agency reported. With a focus on cities and stories, the festival will open with a presentation and question-and-answer session by Turkish writer Murathan Mungan on Sept. 1 in Essen. On the seventh day of the festival, journalist-writer Can Dundar will deliver a lecture on Turkey's Gezi Park protests, which started as a demonstration against the government's plants to cut down some of the tress in Istanbul's Gezi Park and then swept across the whole county, causing the deaths of four protesters and one police officer. Among the other Turkish writers at the festival are poet Gulten Akin, writer Alper Caruguz and academic/writer Murat Gulsoy, according to the official website of the festival. For more information and the festival program, visit www.literatuerk.com.