From the opening of the European Literature Days 2018 with Robert Menasse and Richard David Precht to the final matinee with Ilija Trojanow, a broad spectrum of questions influenced the conversations and debates: What state is our world in? What are the key elements of the present upheaval? What kind of images do we associate with this? How can literary and film narratives help give us orientation in the hazy information world? What is the essential thing about literature (also) in the digital age? What is the nature of the current ongoing change to industrial authorship? What does it mean when writers speak out again more candidly on political and social issues?
At the outset, Richard David Precht in discussing “How the world is educated?” drew our attention to the enormous (equally) intellectual challenge that the digital revolution represents, the most powerful social revolution for two centuries. In the Q&A discussions on “Narrative in literature and film” and the book talks, many writers highlighted the empathy, as well as the courage and risk, which make storytelling meaningful alongside the art itself. Finally, in his acceptance speech for the “Austrian Book Trade Honorary Award for Tolerance in Thought and Action” Ilija Trojanow analysed the ambivalence of times of great upheaval. Writers have a privileged role in the world that is undergoing change because of war, imperialism and environmental catastrophes as well as technological developments. The fact that today many writers are again speaking out about the state of our world reflects the dynamics, just as the necessary suspicion towards and warning against any form of totalitarianism can occur in parallel with the mood for change, or even utopian thinking.
Read more about the European Literature Days
Ilinca Florian’s blog presents an insightful and lively Retrospective
Katharina Hacker’s essay “A Tangled Web of Happiness. Complexity and Film” and Rüdiger Wischenbart’s article “What’s Next? The Law of the Series” are also available online.
Watch the European Literature Days
The award presentation to Ilija Trojanow and the interview by Katja Gasser (ORF) with the writer about tolerance and the social role of literature are available to watch on the ORF tv-thek
Live recordings of debates and readings will be broadcast from 10–16 December on Okto.tv and then also available to view on our website.
