Poetry and music on Valentine's Day

Nafia Akdeniz | Photo: Oguz Adalı Nafia Akdeniz was born in Nicosia, Cyprus. She studied English Literature and Humanities at the Eastern Mediterranean University. Her poems, essays and translations have been published in various literary magazines. She published her first collection of poetry YOK in 2013 (second edition, 2016). Her poems have been translated into English, German, Greek and Persian. She has been working as a senior instructor of English at Eastern Mediterranean University since 2000. She is now a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Communication and Media Studies studying place attachment.

Gür Genç | Photo: Çagıl Günalp Gür Genç (KORKMAZEL): 1969 Pafos born poet, writer and translator. Since 1992 he has published six poetry, three short story and five other books. He took part in many literary projects around Europe, Scandinavia, Balkans, Turkey, Morocco, Palestine and S. Korea.

Nora Nadjarian | Photo: Nora Nadjarian Nora Nadjarian is an award-winning Cypriot poet and writer. She has won prizes and commendations in international competitions, including the Commonwealth Short Story Competition, the Féile Filíochta International Poetry Competition and the Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Prize. She has been widely anthologised and translated into several languages. Her work concentrates on the themes of women, refugees, identity, exile, love and loss, as well as the political situation in Cyprus.  Her poems deal with everyday episodes which go beyond reality in their atmospheric concentration, pointing to symbolic interior worlds. The author Anjali Joseph has said of her work:  "Nora Nadjarian’s distilled short stories are abrupt and intense, as invigorating and aromatic as a double shot of literary espresso."

Giorgos Moleskis | Photo: Giorgos Moleskis Giorgos Moleskis was born in 1946 in the village of Lysi, Cyprus. He studied at the Nicosia English College and at the Moscow State University – Lomonosov. He has an M.A. degree in Russian Language and Literature and a Ph.D. degree in Literature. He was awarded with a Cyprus State Honorary Diploma and a Cyprus State Prize for Poetry, as well as the Pushkin Prize from the Union of Russian Writes (Moscow Organization). From 1967 until today he has published thirteen poetry collections, two books with collected poems, a novel, a book with short stories and five books with poetry translations. Some of his poetry books were translated and published in separate volumes in France, Italy, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania. His poems have been translated and published in literary magazines and anthologies in Russia, Germany, France, Italy, Bulgaria, Rumania Turkey, Ukraine, Finland, Armenia, Estonia, Spain, Chile and other countries.

Stephanos Stephanides | Photo: Stephanos Stephanides Stephanos Stephanides is a Trikomo-born poet, essayist and memoirist, translator, ethnographer, and documentary filmmaker.  He completed his PhD at Cardiff University. In 1992 he was part of the founding faculty of the University of Cyprus and he retired as Professor of English and Comparative Literature in 2017. Selections of his poetry have been published in more than twelve languages. He has held residential writing and research fellowships at the University of Warwick’s Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies; the Bogliasco Foundation, Italy; JNIAS at JNU, India; and Rhodes Centre for Writers and Translators, Greece.  He is a writing fellow of the International Writers Program of the University of Iowa.  Stephanides was awarded first prize for poetry from the American Anthropological Association, 1988, and first prize for video poetry for his film Poets in No Man’s Land at the Nicosia International Film Festival.  He was a judge for the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Eurasia Region, 2000, 2010) is a Fellow of the English Association, and Cavaliere of the Republic of Italy.