LITERARY FESTIVAL | FESTIVAL NEUE LITERATUR 2019: IN MEMORY WE TRUST
FESTIVAL NEUE LITERATUR brings New York audiences new writing from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and the United States, as the first and only festival to spotlight German-language and American fiction together. This year marks a decade in the life of the festival with eight extraordinary authors from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and the United States whose novels resonate with this year’s theme: In Memory We Trust.
The 2019 FNL is jointly curated by Liesl Schillinger and Tim Mohr. Our guest authors from Austria, Daniela Emminger and Laura Freudenthaler, will be joined by their colleagues Stefanie de Velasco and Pierre Jarawan from Germany, Dana Grigorcea and Gianna Molinari from Switzerland, and Min Jin Lee and Jenny Zhang from the United States.
EVENTS
Words with Writers
Friday, March 29 at 6:00 PM
Austrian Cultural Forum New York
New York’s brightest students take on FNL authors in a lightning round of literary speed-dating. Featuring all six German-language authors and moderated by festival curator, author, and translator Tim Mohr. >> Details
Between Languages: Writers Who Translate
Saturday, March 30 at 2:00 PM
Goethe-Institut New York
The festival’s signature translation event returns and pays homage to writers who translate and translators who write. Please join us as we spotlight storytellers who seamlessly move between genres and languages as writers and literary translators, in an exploration of the connections between these forms of writing and how both are inspired, informed, and complicated by occupying a place between languages. >> Details
Another Country: Distant Lands Up Close and Personal
Saturday, March 30 at 6:00 PM
POWERHOUSE Arena
How does the interplay of geography and time alter the identity of a person, a character, a city, a nation? In this panel, we speak with four novelists whose books travel to foreign lands, delving into past events, personal and political, mining memory, and exposing buried clues that define their characters in the present. >> Details
The Author’s Voice
Sunday, March 31 at 2:00 PM
Deutsches Haus at NYU
The six German-language authors of Festival Neue Literatur pair up with New York City actors to give a sampling from their work, providing a taste of new writing from Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. >> Details
Ghosts in the Machine: Haunted Memories and Reimagined Futures
Sunday, March 31 at 6:00 PM
McNally Jackson Books
In this panel, we speak with four authors whose novels and short stories bring to life the specters that haunt them — some political, some familial, some ineffable. These ghosts in the machine have colored their characters’ views of themselves and the world around them. We explore the question of how those who form their selfhood in the shadow of dark influences can use memory to illuminate their reality and liberate their truth. >> Details
All FNL events are free of charge, though RSVPs are required.
For more information, please visit >> festivalneueliteratur.org
For Laura Freudenthaler’s further engagements in Chicago at the Literaturlenz and other cities in the Midwest, please visit the Goethe Institut Chicago.
For Daniela Emminger’s readings as part of the Zeitgeist festival in Washington, DC, please visit the website of the Austrian Cultural Forum in DC.
Laura Freudenthaler’s and Daniela Emminger’s literary tours have been supported by their publishers Czernin and Droschl.