Literaturfest: »I HAVE A DREAM« RENÉ AGUIGAH, HORST LAUINGER, THOMAS LOIBL, ANNA VEIT, LISA WAGNER

In the organizer's words:

Freedom, equality, the pursuit of happiness: On July 4, the United States of America celebrates 250 years of independence. We pay tribute to the promise of happiness and celebrate great literature at the end of the Munich Literature Festival.

USA - three small letters that stand for a big dream: For Yankees and hippies, Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill, Grand Canyon and Silicon Valley. For Moby Dick and Donald Duck, Apollo 11 and Route 66, Moonwalk and Wall Street. What is left of the American Dream? Today, above all, a political and social field of tension. Quo vadis USA? Time to remember the dream of freedom together and celebrate it - with great literature and iconic music.

The opulent volume "I Have a Dream" (Manesse Verlag) brings together an epoch-spanning panorama of American texts: speeches and reports, stories and poems, letters and songs. Classics stand alongside lesser-known voices, historical proclamations alongside poetic reflections.

Lisa Wagner (Residenztheater, "Die Affaire Cum-Ex" and others) and Thomas Loibl ("Die Wannseekonferenz", "Konklave" and others) read a collage of texts as famous as they are surprising, from Benjamin Franklin and James Baldwin to Kurt Cobain and Jonathan Franzen, from Carson McCullers and Patricia Highsmith to Toni Morrison and Miranda July. In conversation with literary critic and author René Aguigah, editor Horst Lauinger shows why it is worth celebrating the diversity of US literature right now. And Munich musician and singer Anna Veit interprets iconic songs from the American Songbook in her unmistakable voice.