The international conference “Reading and Writing In and Between Languages: The Dynamics of Multilingual Literary Creation”, organised by the Centre for Literary and Cultural Studies (KELOPOS) in collaboration with the Jagiellonian University of Kraków, was successfully held on 7 and 8 May 2026 at the Severios Library in Nicosia.

The conference aimed to explore the ways in which multiple linguistic influences interact and shape the process of literary creation. For the first time in Cyprus, the conference succeeded in bringing together a significant number of leading specialists in the field of literary multilingualism from Belgium, France, Poland, Portugal, and the United Kingdom.

As the Director of KELOPOS, Dr Kostis Pavlou, remarked in his opening address:

“At a time when language can both connect and divide, and when cultures encounter one another in increasingly complex ways, the study of multilingual literary creation becomes more relevant than ever. Literature has always moved between languages, and it is within this movement that new meanings emerge. This conference invites us to reflect not only on how we read and write in multiple languages, but also on what happens between them — in those spaces where identities shift, creativity is challenged, and new forms of expression are born.”

The speakers focused on the work of major European writers such as Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, Alexander Pushkin, Tymoteusz Karpowicz, M. S. Lourenço, Czesław Miłosz, Maria Bechczyc-Rudnicka, and Dionysios Solomos, illuminating the diverse and complex dimensions of multilingual literary creation.

The conference concluded with a round-table discussion on cognitive processes in multilingual literary writing, offering a fertile ground for intellectual exchange and scholarly reflection.

The opening of the conference was honoured by the presence of the Ambassador of Poland in Cyprus, Mr Marek Szczepanowski, whose attendance underscored the importance of international academic and cultural collaboration.