Erlangen Poet Festival

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Main stage of the Erlanger Poetenfest 2015

The Erlanger Poetenfest is a German literature festival that has been held annually in Erlangen since 1980 . Its traditional appointment is the last weekend in August; For some years now, the festival has been spread over four days (from Thursday to Sunday). In the first few years, the center of the events was the Erlanger Burgberggarten , and since the early 1990s it has been the Schlossgarten . The average total number of visitors has now settled at 10,000.

Conception

The Poet Festival is positioned in the run-up to the Frankfurt Book Fair and serves as a meeting point for authors, publicists and critics, but above all their contact with the reading public. New publications are presented on the book market in readings and panel discussions. In the calendar of the German literary scene, the Poet Festival is the "prelude to the autumn of books". Texts are often presented that have not yet been printed or delivered and that will not be available to the general public until weeks later at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

history

The Poet Festival was conceived by the head of the Erlangen cultural office, Karl Manfred Fischer, and took place under his direction for the first time in 1980. The venue in the Burgberggarten soon proved to be too small for the increasing number of spectators, the alternative location in the E-Werk cultural center was about a kilometer away. In 1992 the Poet Festival was canceled because the city of Erlangen could not raise the necessary funds. The palace garden has been the scene of the revue of new publications since 1993 , from there you can move to the nearby Redoutensaal in bad weather. Rooms in the castle and its orangery are also available for other events and exhibitions . Karl Manfred Fischer remained festival director until his retirement in 2002, and Bodo Birk has been organizing the Erlanger Poet Festival since 2003.

In 2020, the Erlangen Poetenfest will celebrate its 40th anniversary and is one of the few major literary events that will not be canceled this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic . However, due to the risk of infection, other venues such as the sculpture garden dedicated to Heinrich Kirchner must be avoided. However, the program itself is no less extensive than the years before.

procedure

Each Poet Festival consists of around 100 individual events that take place in a space of around one square kilometer and often overlap. At the beginning on Thursday there will be an evening event with a prominent writer. The translator's workshop will meet on Friday, where a large group of prominent literary translators will discuss current projects in front of an audience. So far guests have been Franz Josef Czernin , Ulrike Draesner , Burkhart Kroeber , Oskar Pastior and Friedhelm Rathjen .

Reading marathon in the castle garden

On Saturday and Sunday in the palace garden - if it rains in the adjoining Redoutensaal - the most popular (and free admission) core event takes place: the revue of new publications , also known as the reading marathon . A dozen authors each read on the same stage, one after the other, for half an hour from new texts. After his individual reading, each author goes to a side stage, where he - while the next one is reading on the main podium - is interviewed by a moderator. For several years now, a children's podium has been held parallel to this, on which children's book authors read.

Georg Klein in an interview with Verena Auffermann on the side podium 1 at the Poetenfest 2010

It is a tradition that the main winner of the last Ingeborg Bachmann competition in Klagenfurt always reads among the Revue authors .

The Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings are reserved for author portraits , which take place in the neighboring historic Margrave Theater. A German and two international star authors will be asked about their lives and work by a moderator. German-speaking guests have been HC Artmann , Hilde Domin , Günter Kunert , Friederike Mayröcker , Peter Rühmkorf and Wolf Wondratschek (among many others) . On the podium International were among others Per Olov Enquist , Amos Oz , Lyudmila Ulizkaja and de Winter Leon on.

Since 2002 there has been a literary night program on Friday evenings - the Long Night - aimed at a young, event-oriented audience.

On Sunday there will also be podium discussions in which current social issues are negotiated beyond the literature business. The discussion events are flanked by exhibitions on art and literature that take place in the Kunstpalais Erlangen . Since 2008, artist books from small publishers have been presented at “Druck & Buch” in the palace or the Kollegienhaus.

The readings, podiums and panel discussions were and will be moderated by critics from the radio and press, who are also involved in the selection of the literary guests. These were or are among others Maike Albath , Verena Auffermann , Michael Braun , Sigrid Löffler , Martin Lüdke , Wilfried F. Schoeller , Hajo Steinert , Florian Felix Weyh and Hubert Winkels .

Erlangen literary prize for poetry as translation

Theresia Prammer and Mayor Florian Janik at the 2019 award ceremony

In 2005, a separate prize was awarded for the first time at the Poet Festival : the Erlangen Literature Prize for Poetry as a Translation . It recognizes poetological achievements in the field of literary translation and is awarded every two years. The prize is endowed with 5000 euros. Previous winners were:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Website for the 40th anniversary , August 15, 2020
  2. ^ Druck & Buch eV, Cultural Office of the City of Erlangen: Druck & Buch , Flyer, 2017.
  3. ↑ Erlanger Literature Prize to Elke Erb
  4. ↑ buchreport.de of July 19, 2013
  5. ↑ Translator Prize from the Erlangen Cultural Foundation goes to Theresia Prammer , article on BuchMarkt.de from July 25, 2019, accessed on July 25, 2019.

literature

Web links

Commons : Erlanger Poetenfest  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files