Waltic 2008, or, a Great Reason to Visit Sweden

This gathering taking place in Stockholm, sounds pretty great:

WALTIC – the value of words, is the first literary world congress of its kind. For the first time ever, a thousand writers and translators from all over the world will gather in one common manifestation of the value of words and in support of human rights. The initiator and host of WALTIC 2008 is the Swedish Writers’ Union.

Of course I can’t link to the speaker’s page (I guess literary people around the world need to get with the program re: web design. Even better is the fact that the “printer friendly version” of the speakers page is simply the page as it exists), but the list is pretty impressive and includes Mia Couto and Nawal El-Saadawi as keynote speakers, and a ton of invited speakers from around the world.

Maybe next year I’ll be able to attend . . .