Romanian novelist Doina Ruști will participate this year in the Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara (FIL), one of the world's most important international publishing and literary events and, according to its organizers, the largest gathering of the Spanish-language publishing industry.
Founded by the University of Guadalajara, FIL celebrates its 40th edition in 2026. The fair will take place from November 28 to December 6, bringing together writers, publishers, book industry professionals, and readers from numerous countries. FIL Guadalajara
Doina Ruști's invitation was supported by the Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR), with the involvement of the Romanian Ministry of Culture, while the Honorary Consulate of Romania in Guadalajara is providing the necessary assistance for her participation in Mexico.
The novelist's program includes three public events.
On December 1, Doina Ruști will join writers Sebastian Barry (Ireland) and Sofia Andrukhovych (Ukraine) for a literary discussion.
On December 3, at 5:00 p.m., she will take part in a conversation with Mexican writer Bernardo Esquinca. Organized by the Romanian Cultural Institute as part of the Festival de Letras Europeas (European Literature Festival), within the Guadalajara International Book Fair 2026, the event will take place at the Expo Guadalajara convention center in Jalisco, Mexico.
Her program will also include a meeting with students at a school in Guadalajara, dedicated to reading and conversations about literature, the imagination, and the ways stories travel between cultures.
At the heart of Doina Ruști's participation is Zogru, a novel translated into Spanish, a fantastic tale about a mysterious character who travels through several centuries of Romanian history.
Published by Descontextos in Santiago de Chile, the novel received favorable critical reviews.
“Full of humor in some passages, tragic and ferocious in others, sometimes fantastic and luminous, like a Chagall painting, what prevails in this wonderful story is the image of the terrible loneliness experienced by the human spirit deprived of love.”
— Pedro Gandolfo, El Mercurio, August 19, 2018
“Zogru is a singular book, a reimagining of Romanian history, a parable about love, death, and power.”
— Leonardo Sanhueza, Las Últimas Noticias, Chile, May 7, 2018
The Guadalajara events will also provide an opportunity to introduce audiences to Doina Ruști's other novels and to her literary universe, where fantasy, history, and the Balkan imagination frequently intersect.
Two other novels by Doina Ruști have been translated into Spanish: Mâța Vinerii and Lizoanca la 11 ani.
Her participation in FIL Guadalajara brings Romanian literature to one of the most important centers of literary exchange in the Spanish-speaking world, in a year when Italy is the fair's Guest of Honor.
Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara, Mexico — November 28–December 6, 2026
“He was looking at her again with his flickering eyes, but with Zogru's deepest, darkest sadness, never forgetting for a single second that Andrei Ionescu's time was already running out, counting down.”
— Zogru
„El calambac esparció su perfume, y el aceite de vid se enturbió, invadido por los fantasmas de otra vida, de cuando no era más que semilla seca bajo montones de caliza. El cuchillo, el mismo que también yo había apretado en la mano sin sentir su poder oculto, el mismo cuchillo que había enviado a Dubois a Marsella, encendido por las venillas invisibles que lo unían aún a Cheliábinsk, empezó a hacer su trabajo."
—Doina Ruști -* La gata del viernes*.
„The agarwood gave off its perfume, and the vine oil clouded over, invaded by the ghosts of other lives, from the time when it was just a dry seed under heaps of limestone. The knife, the same knife that I had gripped in my hands without feeling its hidden power, that had sent Dubois to Marseille, sparked by the unseen veins that still bound it to Chelyabinsk, had begun to do its work. "
—Doina Ruști - The Book of Perilous Dishes
Doina Ruști is an internationally published Romanian novelist whose books have been translated into 18 languages. She has received major literary awards, and her works are studied in schools and universities.
She established her literary reputation through novels in which the fantastic meets harsh social realism. One of her landmark works is Fantoma din moară (The Ghost in the Mill, Polirom, 2008), a novel about Romanian communism, awarded the Romanian Writers' Union Prize for Prose.
Her more recent novels Ferenike (Humanitas, 2025) and Nas de bulgar (Humanitas, 2026) also explore the legacy of recent history, blending autobiographical experience with fiction.
In her Phanariot Trilogy — comprising Manuscrisul fanariot, Mâța Vinerii, and Homeric — Doina Ruști recreates the imaginative world of eighteenth-century Balkan Bucharest through richly inventive storytelling, bringing to the forefront the memories of ordinary people, so often forgotten by grand historical narratives. Mâța Vinerii, the most widely translated novel in the trilogy, was published in English as The Book of Perilous Dishes (London, 2022).
Her books also include Lizoanca la 11 ani (2009), a novel about childhood and moral decay in a rural community. Western critics have compared its atmosphere and narrative construction to Camus's The Plague (Il Libero), and the novel has been included in the doctoral program at the University of Barcelona.
Zogru, one of her best-known works of fantastic fiction, has won literary recognition and has been translated into several languages.
In recent years, Doina Ruști has also published three young adult novels: Platanos, Sălbatica, and Matuf, peruchierul.
Her literary distinctions include the Bucharest Writers' Association Prize (2007), the Romanian Writers' Union Prize for Prose (2008), the “Ion Creangă” Prize of the Romanian Academy (2009), and the award for the Best Book Translated into Hungarian, presented in Budapest (2018).
Writing about her fiction, Marco Dotti observed:
“Her writing has two defining qualities: depth and the sweetness of storytelling.”
“A prose writer endowed with a powerful narrative gift and inner strength.”
— Paul Cernat
Recent monograph: Pompilia Chifu, Doina Ruști, un personaj în propria carte (2025).
Website: www.doinarusti.ro
