Literaturfest München 2026

In the organizer's words:

Freedom is on everyone's lips, the hashtag of our time, on a global and individual level. Hardly any other value is so passionately invoked, so fiercely defended, so often abused. Freedom is political and personal, heroic and pensive, an achievement and an ongoing endeavor.

At a time when borders are closing again, authoritarian systems of power are gaining ground and civil society is coming under pressure, we also trust in art as a place of renewal. We believe in its ability to sharpen our perception and allow us to endure complexity. Freedom is not a matter of course, but a process that must be described, negotiated and defended anew every day.

For the first time, the literature festival is opening up to music and expanding the literary space to include sound and song. In the concert evening "Freedom Is a Verb", for example, Daniel Kahn understands freedom as collective action in his klezmer songs. The philosopher and opera lover Peter Sloterdijk reexamines opera as an opulent art form, with the main theme of the "urge for freedom".

The example of the British-Ghanaian-German star author Sharon Dodua Otoo shows us how liberating it can be to switch between languages. And what unimagined possibilities do modern classics such as Thomas Mann or Kafka offer us as soon as they become "in the public domain"?

Freedom is not a state of tranquillity. It is movement, controversy, lively imagination. It arises where people get involved, where language does not simply obey, where art does not remain ornamental. This festival invites you not to define freedom - but to think about it together - and to celebrate it.