Turkey celebrates the first Novel Heroes Day in world

Culture Minister Ertuğrul Günay poses with people dressing like novel heroes at the opening ceremony of the first Novel Heroes Day Dec 21. AA photo

The first-ever World Novel Heroes Day Literature Festival opened in Istanbul on Dec. 21 with the theme of the Balkan Peace due to the 100th anniversary of the Balkan Wars.

At the opening ceremony of the festival, organized by Maltepe University and Novel Heroes magazine under the auspices of the Culture and Tourism Ministry, Culture and Tourism Minister Ertuğrul Günay said the festival had become an international day on Dec. 21, the longest night of the year.

He said novels had a special place in everyone’s life and in the land of Anatolia, adding that an annual “Novel Heroes Day” was a good idea.

Turkey’s gift to world

He said they had attempted to promote Turkish novels around the world in recent years. “We started to translate world classics into Turkish in the 1940s. We still maintain this tradition. We also have a project to bring Turkish literature to the world. We have provided support to some 1,300 works since 2005 in the field of translation and printing.”

World Novel Heroes Day, which was organized for the first time anywhere in the world and is a gift of Turkey to world literature, will be celebrated every year on Dec. 21. The week around it will be celebrated as the World Novel Heroes Literature Festival.

This year’s festival is being attended by guest writers from Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Macedonia, Romania and Greece. During the festival, foreign writers will speak about the literature of their country and various events
will be organized.