24th ilb
5 – 14 Sep 2024 Program
9 – 18 Sep 2024 Young Program

Programmsparten: Literatures of the World

Saša Stanišić: The Art of Fiction

Saša Stanišić, whose prose has won numerous prestigious awards such as the Leipzig Book Fair Prize and the German Book Prize, is considered a significant literary voice and exceptional talent. His narrative style is characterized by immediacy and whimsical humor and is »a shining example of an immigrant’s poetry that

Irene Solà: When I Sing, Mountains Dance

Imaginative and poetic, Irene Solà tells of life and death in a mountain village in the Pyrenees. Not only people have their say; the author also gives a voice to animals, plants and the mountains. »This book is a true miracle. A many-voiced choral song, so full of imagination and

Faruk Šehić: Clockwork Stories

The EU Prize for Literature-winning writer, who counts himself among the so-called »overrun generation«, continues to tell stories about the trauma of war and the horror of peace in his volume of prose. Time is at the center of his texts – as an element, a dimension, a means, and

Lauren Groff: Matrix

The fictional biography of medieval poet Marie de France: disowned by the royal court at the age of seventeen, she finds a new home among nuns and transforms the convent into a place where women give each other everything they need. »Groff has written a beautiful, unclassifiable book, a queer

Elisa Shua Dusapin: Winter in Sokcho

He, a French comic artist, is a guest at the boarding house where she, a young South Korean woman, works. They meet in the freezing cold of Sokcho, a coastal town just outside of North Korea. The story of their relationship is told in clear, concentrated language. Awarded the Robert

Radka Denemarková: Stunden aus Blei

Along with historical digressions, quotations from Chinese classics and essayistic passages, this major political novel about contemporary China shows the development of individual characters in the resistance, but also criticizes European capitalism and Western arrogance. »The novel shows what it can mean to continue to hold on to hope for

Marit Kapla: Osebol

In her debut, the August Prize winner condenses the biographies of the forty remaining inhabitants of a forest village in Värmland, Sweden, into a moving, compelling hymn to ordinary people. »›Osebol‹ bears witness to ordinary lives. It gives us, unmediated, the voices of people who are usually unheard and invites

Kim Hye-Jin: Concerning My Daughter

Green’s mother wants nothing more for her daughter than a man with whom she can start a family. However, Green is living with a woman. When she is forced to move back in with her mother for financial reasons, there is no way around the confrontation. Stubborn adherence to traditions

Pilar Quintana: Abyss

The fate of a girl who suffers from her parents’ conflicts is at the center of the family novel by Pilar Quintana, »one of the most powerful new voices from Latin America« [DLF Kultur]. The girl searches for a path to freedom and a different life in the tension between

Hernan Diaz: Trust

Based on Benjamin and Helen Rask, a glamorous couple in 1920s New York – he a financial baron, she the daughter of an aristocratic family – the novel explores the power of money. »…the uniquely brilliant way in which Diaz tells that story, as meticulously researched as it is narratively

Anuk Arudpragasam: A Passage North

When Krishan learns that his grandmother’s housekeeper has died under unexplained circumstances, the young man travels to civil war-torn northern Sri Lanka for the funeral. Anuk Arudpragasam, »One of the most individual minds of their generation« [Financial Times], was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his moving reflection on the

Close-Up: Treffen junger Autor:innen

Every year, five prize winners of the Berliner Festspiele’s Treffen Junger Autor:innen are invited to the »Nahaufnahme« [close-up], this year Rania Daoudi, Idil Korkut, Cora Grohmann, Diana Röthlinger und Sophie Schollek. The aim is to encourage the young authors in their writing and support their path to a professional writing