Nature Has a Voice. Meeting and Creative Workshop with Al Tuna

Nature Has a Voice.
Literary meeting and creative workshop with Al Tuna

Can a mountain be a literary hero? How does a writer transform a real place into an artistic world? And what do we lose when the words with which people once described the nature around them disappear?
Try to imagine the Rhodopes without using the words "mountain," "forest," "river," or "beauty." What remains are the sounds, smells, local names, songs, and stories. It turns out that a place exists not only in geography but also in the language through which we know it. And when that language disappears, do we lose a part of the world itself?

On November 28, we will talk with the writer Al Tuna (Zlatka Andonova), author of the novels "Between Two Worlds," "Hands," "Maid," "Love," and "Wine." She travels across Bulgaria, collecting forgotten words and local stories and exploring the connections between humans, nature, and memory.

We will discuss how language defines what we notice, why old words are more than literary color, and how nature can influence the characters, decisions, and fates of the heroes. When does a forest stop being a backdrop and start participating in the story?

And after the conversation, we will experiment! We will look for unusual words for familiar sounds, smells, and sensations, we will recall almost forgotten places, and we will try to turn them into short literary stories.

We will not compete to describe the most beautiful landscape. We will check something more interesting: can a newly discovered word change the way we see the world — and the story we are capable of telling?
You do not need to be writers or connoisseurs of Rhodope dialects. It is enough to be curious about the world and the stories hidden within it.

November 28, 2026, Saturday · 16:00
NCh "Iskra-1924"
Captain Raycho Nikolov St. No. 103, Varna
The event is part of the Day of European Authors 2026 – Varna, "Friendship and Togetherness."