What do you get when you mix a night of high-caliber literary conversation with the kind of international flair only New York can deliver? European Literature Night, of course—a gathering that’s part salon, part cultural dispatch, and fully a feast for the mind. Now in its 7th edition, this annual celebration of storytelling returns to the city in a couple of days, spotlighting some of Europe’s most captivating literary voices, including Romanian author Liliana Corobca.

If you don’t yet know Corobca, you’ve got some brilliant reading ahead. She’s one of Eastern Europe’s most original and unflinching writers, a novelist, essayist, and playwright who doesn’t so much blur the line between history and memory as scratch it out entirely. Her award-winning novels and plays—including Too Great a Sky, Kinderland, The Censor’s Notebooks, and Censorship for Beginners—weave poetic force with moral urgency, excavating the emotional and political landscapes left behind by authoritarianism, censorship, displacement, and exile.

Recently published in English by Seven Stories Press, Corobca’s work has found a growing audience in the U.S., offering readers a window into state surveillance, post-Communist identity, and the power of words to heal and resist. Her appearance at this year’s ELN is a must for anyone interested in how literature can confront—and outlast—oppression.

Hosted by EUNIC New York in collaboration with PEN America, the event’s 2025 edition, taking place at the Ukrainian Institute of America on October 23, is built around three major themes:

• The Past’s Presence – exploring how historical trauma lingers in the now;
• Authoritarianism / Writing War – stories from the edge of conflict and control;
• Ties That Bind – tracing love, desire, and belonging across borders.

Alongside Corobca, the evening features ten other authors representing a kaleidoscope of European cultures and literatures, including:

• Alois Hotschnig (Austria)
• Marek Torčík (Czechia)
• Khuê Pham (Germany)
• Gabija Grušaitė (Lithuania)
• Tobi Lakmaker (Netherlands)
• Joanna Olczak-Ronikier (Poland)
• Katherine Vaz (Portugal)
• Ariane Koch (Switzerland)
• Jonas Hassen Khemiri (Sweden)
• Artem Chapeye (Ukraine).

Whether you’re a seasoned bibliophile or just looking to dip your toe into the latest wave of international fiction, this is a night that promises electric readings, thoughtful dialogue, and plenty to ponder long after the last page is turned.

Admission is free, but seating is limited—register HERE and join the conversation.

Born in the Republic of Moldova, Liliana Corobca is a novelist, essayist, and playwright whose work navigates the fragile boundaries between history and memory, exile and belonging, censorship and resistance. She made her debut with Negrissimo (2003), winner of multiple prizes, followed by A Year in Paradise (2005), Kinderland (2013), and The Old Maids’ Empire (2015). Her bold theatrical monologue Censorship for Beginners (2014) has been staged internationally, while The Censor’s Notebook (winner of the 2023 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize), Kinderland and Too Great a Sky have been translated into English by Monica Cure and published by Seven Stories Press, earning her wide critical acclaim in the United States.

Photo credit: Ema Cojocaru