Berlin’s premier festival of writing and reading, the Internationales Literaturfestival Berlin (ILB), returns this month (Sep 5-14) with a line up as exciting as any in recent memory. The ILB went through a leadership change in early 2023, so this is the 24-year-old festival’s first instalment to be entirely designed under its new director, Lavinia Frey. We spoke with ILB programme director Simone Schröder about which of the festival’s 150 events we really, really shouldn’t miss.
Congratulations on this exciting programme! It looks like a lot of work has gone into it.
Definitely (laughs). The ILB team has been discussing each and every event, deciding on the right combination of people to have on stage. And we have looked at so many books, more than ever before. I always try to invite authors that the audience will already know as well as some interesting new names, or people who have never been to Berlin before – like Hiroko Oyamada from Japan, or the Uyghur author Tahir Hamut Izgil. We also have some exciting queer authors from Southeast Asia coming. It’s a collaborative team, with a lot of internal discussion, and people bringing ideas in.
What themes can we look forward to?
The big development is that this year, for the first time, we have an international curator-in-residence. Helon Habila, an author from Nigeria who lives in the US, has curated 15 of the programme’s events. It was also with him that we came up with the festival theme, ‘Strange New World’, which will be the subject of Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse’s opening speech. Helon’s programme includes conversations as well as literary performances: the Booker Prize-winner Ben Okri will do a performance with live music, which should be very cool, there will be a ‘Comfort Food Workshop’ with Nigerian writer Wana Udobang, and we will also be hosting Nnedi Okorafor, a superstar from the US who has been working on Marvel’s Black Panther comics.
We will be hosting our regular Graphic Novel Day. And we are cooperating with the Belgrade-based literary festival Krokodil, who are good friends of ours – they have curated an author panel and a multilingual literary revue involving female authors from the Western Balkans. I should add that we have 50 events for school groups scheduled during the week.
Which highlights should English-language readers look out for?
The English author Olivia Laing will be in conversation with the German author Daniel Schreiber on the centre stage. We realised that she and Schreiber have written about many very similar themes – addiction, alcohol, Susan Sontag, gardening – so we decided to bring them together on stage. We will also have Rachel Cusk reading from Parade and Paul Lynch from Prophet Song. And Elif Shafak is coming with her new book, There Are Rivers in The Sky, which is an absolute must-read.
Is there anything else you’re particularly excited about?
For the first time, we are doing an event on contemporary German literature with English translation. ‘Auf Drei’ will feature Dilek Mayatürk, Lilian Peter, and Dita Zipfel, three very cool young German-language authors, as they give readings and discuss their books while English translations of their work are screened for the audience. This will be interesting for people who want to get an idea of where German literature is right now.
We are also hosting two Scandinavian authors who are really cool – and who I think will be very big in the future. We will have Thomas Korsgaard, a Danish author whose new novel, a coming-of-age story, is one of my favourites in recent times. He will appear alongside Iida Turpeinen from Finland, who has written an amazing novel about a massive extinct sea creature and the extinction crisis more broadly. It’s an amazing text, written in such a beautiful prose style.
A hot insider tip! See them before they blow up…
Yes (laughs). We had Ocean Vuong before he was big. So now you’ve got a chance to discover the next Ocean Vuong!
Finally: What effect do you hope the festival will have on people who attend?
We want to host a lot of meaningful conversations. We want to bring people together. And we want to create a communal space where people who love literature can come together and talk – a place for Berlin’s literary community.
- Haus der Berliner Festspiele, Schaperstr. 24, Wilmersdorf (and other locations), Sep 5-14, details.
