Pilot Project for Swiss Literary Scene in Frankfurt
Published: Tuesday, Oct 17th 2023, 12:10
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The Swiss literary scene is presenting itself at the 75th Frankfurt Book Fair with the new so-called Off Bühne Schweiz. Visibility is the goal of this pilot project of the Swiss Cultural Foundation Pro Helvetia. The Frankfurt Book Fair remains an important place for the visibility of Swiss literary work, for authors and translators, said Reina Gehrig of the news agency Keystone-SDA. Gehrig is head of the literature department at Pro Helvetia. This year, the cultural foundation is launching a two-year pilot project: the Off Bühne Schweiz. This space is intended to be a meeting place for Swiss and international literary professionals. The program includes discussion rounds and readings. The stage should also offer opportunities for networking and target the professional audience with specific formats. The program was curated by the authors Mariann Bühler from Basel and Gianna Molinari from Zurich. For the professional and reading audience, Reina Gehrig and her team have been working on the concept of this new offer for two years. The needs of the literary scene were at the center. The stage will be played on all five days of the fair: Wednesday and Thursday will bring current topics for the professional audience, such as dealing with artificial intelligence (AI) and freedom of opinion or how to make fair appearances more ecological. From Friday to Sunday, interactive readings and events are planned, which are also intended for the general public. Authors such as Gianna Olinda Cadonau or Bruno Pellegrino or comic artist Nando von Arb will have their appearance; translators and translators are dedicated to program points, as are the multilingualism of Switzerland or so-called small languages from the international space. The Off Bühne Schweiz is intended as a complement to the fair appearance of the Swiss book trade. The stage is located in the immediate vicinity of the joint stand of the Swiss Book Trade and Publishing Association (SBVV). This year, too, special emphasis is placed on the multilingualism of Switzerland with its four national languages - with the color-coded marking of the languages, as SBVV Managing Director Tanja Messerli says. In addition, the association is appearing from the German-speaking part of Switzerland together with the partners Livresuisse from the Romandy and Alesi from the Ticino. And: "With large publishers such as Diogenes, Kein & Aber and the AT-Verlag at the joint stand, we are attractive for the public," says Messerli. High demand The 75th Frankfurt Book Fair takes place from Wednesday to Sunday. It is already clear that the fair halls will be full in these five days. Two weeks before the start of the fair, ticket sales exceeded the 300,000 entries from the pre-corona year 2019. For years it has been clear that the Frankfurt Book Fair is opening up more and more to the broad reading public - a need of the publishing companies that want to sell books at the fair. The fair is responding to this in this year by allowing the general public to enter already on Friday. The pure trade fair, at which, for example, licenses are traded, was shortened to two days. With the Off Bühne Schweiz, which is designed modularly, Pro Helvetia wants to react flexibly to trends. "After the two years of the pilot phase, we will evaluate what we have achieved and then decide how to proceed with the Off Bühne Schweiz," says Gehrig.
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