Tatjana Gridnev, born in Russia, studied Cultural Studies and Cultural Management in Berlin. Since 2016, she leads the finance, cooperation and personnel department of the international literature festival berlin, international literature festival odesa as well as for the other projects of the Peter-Weiss-Stiftung für Kunst und Politik e.V.
Linus Gustafsson, born in Berlin in 2004, has been volunteering at the international literature festival berlin as part of an FSJ in culture since completing his A-levels. He supports both the programme department and the ilbDIGITAL programme.
Nora Mengel, born in Berlin, is head of the ilbDIGITAL programme and programme manager. She holds a PhD in Eastern European History from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität [LMU] Munich, studied Eastern European Studies at LMU Munich and Cultural Studies at Europa-Universität Viadrina in Frankfurt [O .], Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Lomonosov State University Moscow. She gained her first professional experience in intercultural communication and political development cooperation at the Goethe Institute in Minsk [Belarus] and at the Federal Foreign Office in Moscow as well as at the Deutsch-Russisches-Forum e.V. in Berlin. After numerous research stays in Vienna and Saint Petersburg, she completed her dissertation »Biograph(i)en of the Empire« – a comparison of imperial consciousness in the Habsburg and Russian Empires at the end of the 19th century – at the Institute for European History in Mainz, for which she was awarded the Research Prize of the Institute for Personal History in 2020.
Charlotte Rauth, born in Bonn in 1991, is head and co-editor of the publication project Refugees Worldwide 4 in the ilb’s Programme section. She studied German language and literature, cultural studies and business administration at the University of Mannheim [BA] and cultural mediation with a focus on literature at the University of Hildesheim [MA]. In addition to subject-related stays abroad in Turkey [Marmara Üniversitesi, Instanbul] and in India [Goethe-Institut Max Mueller Bhavan Bangalore] she co-coordinated, among other things, the pop-up exhibition Freedom Transmissions, funded by the German Foreign Office, in collaboration with the Berlin artists’ collective coculture e.V., and actively participated in the founding, conception, and coordination of the artist protection program Creative Haven Hildesheim.
Christoph Rieger, born in Potsdam in 1984, has headed the ilb section »International Children’s and Youth Literature« since 2011. He studied theater, film and media studies, sociology and psychology in Frankfurt am Main and Aberystwyth. In 2012, he initiated the annual ilb award »The Extraordinary Book«. From 2014 to 2017, he was a member of the Council for the Arts. Since 2015 he has curated the young program of the odessa international literature festival. 2016 to 2018 he was a member of the ZEIT lynx literary award. 2017 he directed the versfest berlin. 2022 he is a member of the special award jury of the german youth literature award.
Ulrich Schreiber, born in Solingen in 1951, is the festival director and program director of ilb. He studied philosophy, political science as well as Russian at the Freie Universität zu Berlin and passed the second state examination in 1984. In 1989 he founded the International Peter Weiss Society and in 2001 the international literature festival berlin [ilb]. Together with the Bernese cultural manager Hans Ruprecht, Ulrich Schreiber is the founder of the Odessa International Literature Festival, which was held in Ukraine for the first time in 2015. Schreiber was a member of the PEN Center Germany and is co-initiator of the PEN World Voices Festival, as well as co-founder of PEN Berlin. In 2015, Schreiber was named Chevalier des Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his »contribution to the radiance of the arts and literature in France and in the world.« Publications include: »Die politische Theorie Antonio Gramscis«, Berlin 1980, 4th edition 1994, and various publications of the ilb.
Simone Schröder, born in Frankfurt am Main in 1986, is the director of the ilb’s evening programme. She studied General and Comparative Literature, Hispanic Studies and Political Science in Mainz. She then lived in London for several years and was awarded her PhD in 2017 from the University of Bath with a thesis on nature essayism. In 2019, her book »The Nature Essay: Ecocritical Explorations« was published by Brill/ Rodopi. In addition to her work for the festival, she is a translator, editor of various anthologies and essayist. She has been awarded the Edit Essay Prize and the Essay Prize of Merkur magazine for her texts, among others, and was a scholarship holder of the LCB and the Jürgen Ponto Foundation.
Manuel Wischnewski, born in 1984, studied history, Political Science, English Studies and American Studies at the Universität Potsdam, and completed his Master in Early Modern History at the University of Manchester (UK). He was, among other things, Managing Editor of the art magazine BLAU International, Project Lead Social Media for the Berlinale as well as Project Lead Digital for the magazine KULTURAUSTAUSCH of the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen. As a freelance writer, he has written for WELT am SONNTAG and Berliner Zeitung, among others. For the communications agency Looping Group, he advised clients from the fields of business, health and culture until mid-2022.