Gala Uzryutova will become a participant of the Virtual Writer's Residence in Nanjing

Nanjing, the UNESCO City of Literature in China, announced the results of the selection of participants for the Virtual Writer's Residence 2020. Based on the results of the consideration of applications, the organizers selected six authors from different cities of the world who will be able to work in Nanjing online. Among them is the poet, writer, playwright from Ulyanovsk Gala Uzryutova.

The program is aimed at authors from cities with strong literary traditions, mainly writers from UNESCO cities of literature. During the writers' online stay in Nanjing, virtual events will be organized to help them learn about local culture, better understand local literature and get creative inspiration from new experiences. The residents' texts translated into Chinese will be published in local media.

Initially, the residence was planned to be held offline, but due to the pandemic, it was moved to an online format. Based on the results of consideration of applications, the organizers selected 6 online participants of the Virtual Writer's Residence 2020 from UNESCO literary cities:

- Andrew Graves (Nottingham);

- Fiona Kah (Durban);

- Laura Elizabeth Vollet (Melbourne);

- Elena Andreychikova (Odessa);

- Gala Uzryutova (Ulyanovsk);

- Mike Nicholson (Edinburgh).

The authors are waiting for an online acquaintance with bookstores, libraries, museums of Nanjing, as well as dialogues with local writers, literature lovers, students and citizens. When making an application, each candidate could choose online walks, places and meetings that he was interested in, make up his own route of virtual work in the city. So, the Ulyanovsk author will prepare an essay about the literary life of Nanjing, write a series of poems about the city and prepare an interview with one of the famous writers.

Earlier, Gala Uzryutova worked in writer's residences in Latvia and Slovenia, participated in international literary projects and festivals. Recently, the author was also invited to an international seminar with Romanian playwright Eliza Wilk "Journalistic techniques in writing plays". 8 playwrights from different European countries were selected to participate in the competition. The seminar was organized by the project to support modern drama "Fabulamundi Playwriting Europe".

In addition, in 2020, another Ulyanovsk author was selected to work at the writer's residence in Tartu, the UNESCO literary city, but due to the pandemic, its dates have been postponed indefinitely. Details will be announced later

About the author

Gala Uzryutova was born in 1983, in Ulyanovsk. Graduated from Ulyanovsk State University, Faculty of Culture and Art. The author of the book of poems "Turned around, and there is a forest" (publishing house "Russian Gulliver", M., - 2015), the collection of prose "Snow that I missed" (Bookscriptor, M., - 2018), the book Young Adult "Sasha Country" (publishing house "KompasGid", M., - 2019). The texts were translated into German, English, Slovenian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Italian, and Ukrainian.

Laureate of the Russian-Italian literary Prize "Rainbow 2019", laureate of the competition of the European Network of Theatrical Translation Eurodram (2018), fellow of the Goethe-Institute Program "Culture in Motion" (2019), laureate of the Bookscriptor Literary Prize 2018, laureate of the N.N. Blagov Poetry Prize (2016), diploma of the Dmitry Gorchev Literary Prize (2017), laureate of the special poetry prize "Russian Gulliver-2014". In 2020, the author became one of the winners of the Garage Museum of Modern Art competition dedicated to self-isolation (2020).Member of the Moscow Writers' Union. He is also engaged in photo projects, sound projects, interdisciplinary art projects. Website https://www.galauzryutova.com .

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