Göttingen literary autumn

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The Göttingen Literature Autumn is an international literature festival in Lower Saxony . It takes place annually in Göttingen on ten days in October following the Frankfurt Book Fair . The festival was founded in 1992 by Christoph Reisner (1965–2014) as a sole proprietorship and has been a GmbH since 2006 with a non-profit association of the same name. Since Reisner died in March 2014 after a long illness, Johannes-Peter Herberhold has been managing director of the Göttingen Literature Autumn.

history

The first Göttingen literary autumn took place in 1991 as a reading series in the Göttingen district of Grone , there in the ballroom of a listed former village restaurant, the Ballhaus. The first literary autumn was opened by Max Goldt ; further guests were Doris Dörrie , Gisbert Haefs , Eckhard Henscheid and Josef von Westphalen. In the second year the company moved to the city center and internationalized the program. As one of the first modern literary festivals in Germany, the literary autumn became a stage for artists from England, Canada and the USA, many of whom had their first appearance in Germany in Göttingen. Among them were Douglas Adams , Douglas Coupland , Ben Elton , Stephen Fry and Michael Palin from "Monty Python's Flying Circus". In 1997 the literary autumn was converted to a 10-day festival format, which is still in place today. In 2006 the festival, previously run as a sole proprietorship, was converted into a GmbH. Festival founder Christoph Reisner became managing director, after his death in 2014 Johannes-Peter Herberhold took over the position. The advisory board consists of scientists, publishers and cultural experts. In 2007 the festival program was expanded to include a science series. From 2009 to 2012, the literary autumn was also the venue for the award of the NDR Kultur Sachbuchpreis , which is awarded annually for the best non-fiction book published in German. In 2014, the first official reading by the German Book Prize winner ( Lutz Seiler ) took place after the award ceremony as part of the Göttingen Literature Autumn. In the same year the Göttinger Literaturherbst GmbH opened a festival office on Hospitalstrasse in the city center.

In 2016 the festival celebrated its 25th edition. On this occasion, a short festival prologue with a reading by Martin Walser took place in spring under the motto "Autumn in Spring" . The 25th Göttingen Literature Autumn in autumn 2016 was the largest to date (66 events). Guests in Göttingen included Christian Kracht , Cees Nooteboom , book award winner Bodo Kirchhoff and Denis Scheck . Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre (formerly an intern at the festival) read at the end from "Panikherz", in which he also devotes a few chapters to his time with the festival's founder and mentor Reisner. The number of visitors in 2016, together with the prologue, was around 15,000.

concept

The literary autumn is a stage for modern literature, from international fiction to scientific non-fiction. Since its inception, the festival has been characterized by the development and application of innovative methods of conveying literature. In 1994, the literary autumn was the first literature festival in Germany to publish a live CD. The recording of the reading by Douglas Adams in Göttingen (two thousand and one, out of print) was followed by further live recordings, among others by Joe Jackson , Heinz-Rudolf Kunze , Marcel Reich-Ranicki and Harry Rowohlt . In 2000, the Literaturherbst was the first literature festival in Germany to use digital subtitles for a reading in a foreign language, while the English-language reading by Irvine Welsh ( Trainspotting ) was translated with German subtitles projected onto the stage. Intermedial processes were also used by artists such as Ben Becker ( approaches by Ernst Jünger ), Frank Schätzing ( Der Schwarm ), and Juli Zeh ( Corpus Delicti - Eine Schallnovelle ). The venues are historical buildings of the university town of Göttingen , u. a. the hall of the old town hall, the German theater in Göttingen and the historical university library in the Paulinerkirche. Since the 23rd edition of the festival, venues outside the city limits of Göttingen have also been included in the program for the first time. In 2014, for example, readings took place in the Grenzlandmuseum Teistungen and in the historic town hall of Duderstadt. Other venues since 2014 have been Einbeck, Sülbeck, Bovenden, Alfeld, the municipality of Gleichen, Nörten-Hardenberg, Hann. Münden, Rosdorf and Ebergötzen.

Scientific focus

The city of Göttingen is the location of the traditional Georg August University , the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen founded by Albrecht von Haller as well as the founding place of the Max Planck Society and the location of numerous research institutions, including five Max Planck Institutes, the German Primate Center and the German Aerospace Center . The science focus of the festival uses the international networking of the institutions of the “city that creates knowledge”. Speakers of the science series in the Paulinerkirche were u. a. Sir Peter Atkins , Sir Roger Penrose , Lord Colin Renfrew , Lee Smolin , Christopher Clark and Joseph Stiglitz . Since 2014, the Max Planck Institutes, together with the Göttinger Literaturherbst, have been awarding science communication medal to scientists in order to recognize them for special services in imparting knowledge to the general public.

Advisory Board

  • Tete Böttger (Arkana Verlag),
  • Nils Brose (MPI for Experimental Medicine),
  • Jürgen Haese (Kappa Opto-Electronics),
  • Helmut Grubmüller (Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry),
  • Claudia Leuner-Haverich (municipal housing association),
  • Wolfgang Meyer (former Lord Mayor of the City of Göttingen),
  • Gerhard Steidl ( Steidl Verlag ),
  • Rolf-Georg Köhler (Lord Mayor of the City of Göttingen),
  • Bernhard Reuter (District Administrator of the Osterode-Göttingen District),
  • Stephan Herminghaus (Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization),
  • Klaus Wettig , Chair (retired MdE, cultural manager)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ NDR culture - non-fiction book award. ( Memento of September 5, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Retrieved September 15, 2010.
  2. ^ Website of the city of Göttingen. Retrieved September 15, 2010.