The European Festival of the First Novel gathers annually debutants and their editors from European countries. From 26 to 29 May the Festival takes place in Literaturhaus Schleswig-Holstein for the 20th time.
Since 2003 new prose forms the heart of the European Festival of the First Novel. 13 novelists and their editors as well as other professionals of the literary world will gather in Schleswig-Holstein to discuss writing and publishing, to acquaint themselves with new novels, and hopefully pave the way for translation.
The festival will start with the reading "Europe in the mirror of new prose" on 26 May with all participants in the Literaturhaus Schleswig-Holstein in Kiel. The authors will read from their debut novels in their original language, German sample translations will be read by the actors Jule Nero and Nils Aulike. The reading fwill be streamed via livestream here. A special reading with the Ukranian author Eugenia Kuznetsova will take place on 28 May. Kuznetsova's second book "Ask Miyechka" was shortlisted for the BBC News Ukraine Book of The Year 2021
The opening reading gala, digital meetings with students at the Christian-Albrechts-university, and the following literary conference are giving the participants, the public audience, and the conference guests a forum for exchange on literature, language and ways of promoting and transferring literature in Europe.
Following authors will be participate at this year's festival: Glenn Bech (Denmark), Annika Domainko (Germany), Maisku Myllymäki (Finland), Matthieu Zaccagna (France), Alessandra Carati (Italy), Anna Auziņa (Latvia), Simone Atangana Bekono (Netherlands), Sandra Kolstad (Norway), Sabine Schönfellner (Austria), Salomé Kiner (Switzerland), Klemen Pisk (Slovenia) und Lenka Elbe (Czech Republic). More information about this year's program can be found here.
The 20th European Festival of the Debut Novel is part of the Grand tour literary event series organized by the Institut Français Germany on the occasion of the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
