Dear audience,
Full of gratitude, we look back on 14 days of festival:
More than 25,000 visitors joined us this year at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele and at our other venues, 11,000 of them in the Young Program. We are especially delighted that the Young Program welcomed 3,000 more readers than last year and that no fewer than 25 events of the festival were completely sold out.
Our heartfelt thanks go to you, dear audience, for your curiosity, your openness, and your enthusiasm.
We would love to hear from you: How was the festival for you? What did you enjoy, and what could we do better? Take a few minutes for our audience survey and let us know how you experienced this year’s program:
26th ILB Audience Survey
Your feedback feeds directly into the planning of the 27th ILB, which takes place from 16 to 25 September 2027.
Festival highlights
Among this year’s most-attended events was the sold-out launch of the new series «Satzwechsel» in cooperation with the Berliner Philharmoniker: on 7 September, Nobel laureate Han Kang presented her essay collection «Light and Thread» in dialogue with chamber music. At «The Art of Writing» on 10 September, Christian Kracht and Katie Kitamura discussed the influences on and common ground between their works. Booker Prize winner Douglas Stuart presented his new novel «John of John» on 4 September, and on 5 September Dave Eggers appeared live in Berlin for the first time with «Contrapposto».
A passion for reading in times of digital overload
Under this year’s motto «You are born with your face turned everywhere», the 26th International Literature Festival Berlin celebrated reading as an act of radical openness – one that can open up new perspectives in times of polarization and populism. At the same time, the festival’s debates returned again and again to the value of literature as a medium of conscious attention and as an antidote to the digital overload caused by social media and AI:
What role does reading play in today’s economy of distraction? What does human writing mean in the age of artificial intelligence? And which political futures are taking shape? In its «Dialogues & Discussions», the festival also took up these debates of the present, for instance in «Der Streit um das Recht» with Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf, Julia Reuschenbach, Jürgen Kaube and Sandra Kegel, in «Zukunft Deutschland: AfD an der Macht?» with Justus Bender and Heike Klüver, and in «Think Big! Tech Bros und KI-Revolution» with Aya Jaff, Marie Kilg and Wolfgang Ullrich.
Young Program
More than 11,000 children and young readers attended the Young Program this year, almost 3,000 more than last year. 100 participants, including 18 authors, shaped 33 events and 26 workshops. Özge Samancı opened the festival for the next generation of readers with her speech «The Slow Superpower». The many sold-out events included readings with Cornelia Funke, as part of the Lesesause, as well as Sydney Smith, Delphine Minoui and Don Pablo Mulemba.
Joining in digitally
Those who could not be there in person were still part of it: 12 events were streamed and have been viewed more than 13,500 times to date. All recordings remain available online.
We also accompanied the festival day by day on Facebook and Instagram – stop by and follow us for more.
You can listen to the festival radio contributions in the radio3 media library.
Outlook
One festival cycle ends, another begins:
The 27th International Literature Festival Berlin will take place from 16 to 25 September 2027 at silent green and other venues.
And just before the festival came to a close, we received some important news: in the foreseeable future, the festival is set to move into institutional funding from the federal government and become part of the Berliner Festspiele. This means the ILB’s future is secured for the long term. Wonderful news! This prospect was agreed as part of the negotiations on the Hauptstadtfinanzierungsvertrag between the federal government and the State of Berlin. Until then, funding continues to be secured through the Hauptstadtkulturfonds. More on this here in our press release.
We are already looking forward to seeing you again!
Warm regards,
Lavinia Frey, Festival Director, and the ILB team