9th FrankfurtRhineMain Literature Festival from 4 to 10. June in Frankfurt and the Rhine-Main region
(ffm) Every two years, the city of Frankfurt hosts a major literature festival in Frankfurt and the Rhine-Main region. As a concept festival, literaTurm sets a changing thematic focus. This year, under the motto "Biography!", the focus is on life stories that have become books. Two reading concerts with the Ensemble Modern, several panel discussions and a film evening round off the programme. A total of 44 events with around 100 authors, scientists, journalists and musicians will take place. Frankfurt's OpernTurm remains a central venue.
From June 4 to 10, the Frankfurt Cultural Office will be hosting the literaTurm literature festival for the ninth time. Under the motto "Biography!", this year's festival presents the various forms of telling life stories: as non-fiction about historical figures, as autobiography or autobiographically based novels, or as artists' novels. Panel discussions, such as on the 200th birthday of Karl Marx or the anniversary of 1968, a reading concert commissioned by literaTurm with Felicitas Hoppe and Iris ter Schiphorst, interpreted by the Ensemble Modern, and an evening on Georgian literature accompany the programme. A total of 81 writers, scholars and journalists will discuss and explore the different varieties of biographical writing during the festival.
Deputy Head of the Department of Culture Ina Hartwig underlines the importance of literaTurm as a concept festival unique in Germany and emphasizes its power to connect the city and the region: "As a festival that takes place both in Frankfurt towers and in selected locations in the region such as Wiesbaden, Offenbach, Bad Soden, Hanau and Oestrich-Winkel, literaTurm consolidates the common self-image of the Rhine-Main region as a cultural powerhouse. With its motto this year ‚Biography!', the festival takes up questions in the field of tension between origin, individual life story and identity, which are of great importance, especially in view of current political developments."
Festival director Sonja Vandenrath adds, "Biographies are experiencing a renaissance. They highlight an individual fate that points beyond the purely individual. This can be an era, a work or even a human crime. Whether the life stories were really like that is less important in biographies than how well they are told. This applies all the more to a literary festival like literaTurm, which seeks the literary in biographical writing. Imagination and narrative flow connect the biographies presented this year with autobiographically based novels and the artists' novels. As never before, literaTurm 2018 moves in the in-between realm of fact and fiction."
One of the highlights of the festival is the opening event at the Dominican Monastery with the world premiere of a reading concert conceived by writer Felicitas Hoppe and composer Iris ter Schiphorst. The commissioned composition for literaTurm 2018 will be performed by Ensemble Modern. Other highlights include events with Karl Heinz Bohrer, Eva Demski, Durs Grünbein, Jakob Hein, Dominique Horwitz, Lamya Kaddor, Ijoma Mangold, Anthony McCarten, Klaus Modick, Ralf Rothmann, Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, Linn Ullmann, Josef Winkler, and Martin Walser together with Jakob Augstein.
LiteraTurm will once again live up to its claim of being a curated concept festival with a series of top-class panel discussions: on the occasion of the Karl Marx anniversary year, biographers Jürgen Neffe, Eva Weissweiler and Uwe Wittstock will talk about his person and his work (6 June). The '68 movement, its successes and the years spent together with the political activist Rudi Dutschke will be recalled in the evening with his companions Gretchen Dutschke and Milan Horáček in conversation with the political scientist Wolfgang Kraushaar (10 June).
On the new focus on non-fiction, the program includes such recent biographies of Ludwig van Beethoven, Helmut Kohl, Helmut Schmidt, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Empress Maria Theresa. An evening of films rounds out the festival program, showcasing the career of American poet Emily Dickinson in "A Quiet Passion" by Terence Davies (2016).
This year, a majority of the events will once again take place in the eponymous towers. These include the OpernTurm and the nearby ODDO BHF bank. A new addition is the Westend-Duo office tower, also located on Bockenheimer Landstrasse. Other venues in Frankfurt include the Archaeological Museum, the Städelschule refectory, the Dominican Monastery, the Haus der Deutschen Ensemble Akademie, the Freies Deutsches Hochstift, the Hessisches Literaturforum im Mousonturm, the Literaturhaus, the Filmmuseum, the Haus am Dom, the Evangelische Akademie Frankfurt, the Diakoniezentrum WESER5 and the Kuhhirtenturm. Outside Frankfurt, events are also held in Bad Soden, Bad Vilbel, Darmstadt, Eppstein, Hanau, Hochheim, Oberursel, Offenbach, Oestrich-Winkel and Wiesbaden in cooperation with local partners. They are made possible by the generous support of the Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain.
literaTurm is supported by the Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain as well as numerous space sponsors and cooperation partners. At <link http: www.literaturm.de>
all information about the events and contributors are available. The festival will be communicated on social media with the hashtag #literaturm2018
