For the second year running, the ‘Zentrum Wort’ at the Frankfurt Book Fair was the central meeting place for contemporary literature and translation, with an event stage and a new networking area.
The high-calibre programme brought German-speaking and international guests from the worlds of theory and practice onto the stage and into conversation. The discussions covered controversial topics from the worlds of literature, translation and cultural policy. The thematic spectrum ranged from the new literary public sphere and its criteria, the current living and working conditions of authors, the aesthetics of artificial intelligence, writing for young readers, literary existence in exile, and literary perspectives on society and the present day. Discussions covered global inequalities in the literary world, the translatability of violence, copyright in the age of AI, and questions of reception – such as Jane Austen translations on the occasion of her 250th birthday, or how ‘sendstark’ the work of Rolf Dieter Brinkmann is 50 years after his death.