Centre of Words

Spotlight on literature and translation

The Centre of Words focuses on the topics of literature and translation – with its own stage as well as a space for discussion and making connections.

The top-class program brought German-speaking and international guests from theory and practice onto the stage and into conversation. Virulent topics from literature, translation and cultural policy were discussed. The thematic spectrum ranged from genre-generative AI and its far-reaching consequences to the effects of Italian politics on the cultural sector, writing in exile and the current situation of creative artists in Ukraine, positions of new Jewish narratives and the challenges of translating the works of James Baldwin, Paul Celan, James Joyce and Roberto Saviano. Poetics of the present were presented and questions were asked about writing of the future. It was about translators as scouts, the comic book market, East Asian science fiction, trends in current Italian literature and, again and again, the latest German-language prose and poetry in all its diversity.

Zentrum Wort. Bühne für Literatur & Übersetzung. Frankfurter Buchmesse 2024. 16 bis 20. Oktober. Halle 4.1 F21.

The Centre of Words is jointly supported by the German Translators’ Fund and the German Literature Fund, with additional support provided by the Federal Government’s Commissioner for Culture and the Media and Kunststiftung NRW, in cooperation with Frankfurter Buchmesse.