Frankfurter Buchmesse Bookfest now online

Every year in October, culture enthusiasts from all over the world celebrate the Bookfest together — the big international cultural festival of Frankfurter Buchmesse — from bestseller events with world-famous authors to discussion rounds, workshops and performances. This year, for the first time it will take place virtually as Bookfest digital.

07 Oct 2020 | By Dibyajyoti Sarma

Bookfest digital will broadcast a multi-faceted programme on 17 October 2020, from 10 in the morning to 10 in the evening. It will present, among others, Elizabeth Gilbert, Jenny Erpenbeck, Ayad Akhtar, Eliot Weinberger, Peter Wohlleben, Kirsten Boie, Don Winslow, Karin Slaughter, Clemens Meyer, Olga Grjasnowa, Joachim Meyerhoff, Iris Wolff and Ralf König.

Canada is preparing a series of virtual programme elements that will show the diversity, creativity and uniqueness of the Canadian literary and cultural scene. The future host countries Spain and Slovenia will also be represented in both Bookfest programme formats. The former Guest of Honour countries Norway and Georgia will also present famous and popular authors from their countries.

Bookfest digital will be livestreamed on YouTube and buchmesse.de — along with selected highlights on Facebook.

Award-winning author Bernardine Evaristo will be a keynote speaker at Frankfurter Buchmesse’s online conference, heading up the Publishing Insights track that takes place online at www.buchmesse.de/conference2020 on Wednesday, 14 October 2020. The British author, who was awarded the 2019 Booker Prize, will address the topics of diversity and inclusion in publishing in her keynote speech.

Bernardine Evaristo, MBE, is the award-winning author of several books of fiction and verse fiction that explore aspects of the African diaspora. Her novel Girl, Woman, Other (published by Hamish Hamilton) won the Booker Prize in 2019 and the Fiction Book of the Year Award at the British Book Awards in 2020. In June 2020, she also won Author of the Year, as well as becoming the first woman of colour and black British writer to assume No 1 in the UK Sunday Times paperback fiction chart.

Her writing spans reviews, essays, drama and radio, and she has edited and guest-edited national publications, including The Sunday Times Style magazine. Evaristo is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University, London, and Vice Chair of the Royal Society of Literature.

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