As Valentine's Day approaches, we are busy preparing a very special event about the British Love Affair with Romania. Writer Bronwen Riley and art historian Lucy Abel Smith have unearthed some joyous examples of the British falling in love with Romania. Their sometimes surprising, often moving, and little-known stories span the course of history, from the time of the ancient Dacian king Decebal to the current King of the UK, Charles III.
This event celebrates love and also supports the Transylvanian Book Festival, which Lucy and Bronwen will be organising in Richis from 12-15 September.
Lucy Abel Smith, Transylvanian Book Festival Founder.
Lucy specialised in late medieval art at the University of London and wrote the first post-communist walking guide to Prague, in 1991. She was chairman of a leading specialisttravel company, and worked as a consultant and guest lecturer for organisations such as Sothebys. In 2000 she established her own cultural travel company Reality & Beyond. Her deep knowledge and love of Transylvania led her to rescue an 18th-century Saxon house, write a Blue Guide to the area, Travels in Transylvania – The Greater Tarnava Valley– and to found the Transylvanian Book Festival in 2013. Lucy has been described as a ‘cultural dynamo’ with a formidable track-record for creating imaginative and highly successful cultural events. The biennial Fresh Air sculpture show, which she founded in the grounds of her Gloucestershire home, now attracts more than 10,000 people.
Bronwen Riley, Transylvanian Book Festival Creative Director
Bronwen is a writer and historian with a special interest in the Classical world and Romania, both lifelong passions. She first visited Romania in the 1990s and published Transylvania, in 2008. She spoke at the Transylvanian Book Festival in 2016 on one of her special subjects, the Dacians, and chaired the Festival in 2019. She has had a career in publishing, on national magazines and newspapers, and then at English Heritage, the national organisation for heritage, where she was head of content and series editor of guidebooks. She is now working on a cultural project with the Romanian diaspora in the UK and continues to write books and articles about the Classical world, historic buildings and journeys. As Festival creative director, Bronwen can draw on her great experience, enthusiasm and knowledge of Romania and her vast network of contacts in Britain and Romania in culture, media and academia.
When: Thursday, 8 February
2024, 7 PM
Where: Romanian Cultural Institute, 1 Belgrave Square, Londra SW1X8PH
