30^th Leukerbad International Literary Festival

In the Spotlight

This year’s festival focuses:
Orient
Was Rilke ever young?
“Die Holländerinnen” – Translation Colloquium with Dorothee Elmiger
Swiss Schiller Foundation Literature Prizes 2026
Festival lounge

Orient

The countries between Morocco and Afghanistan, from North Africa to the Middle East, were often reduced to the “Other”, “Foreign” by the so-called “West”. The reference was on the surface by no means always just connoted negatively: the “Orient” was portrayed as a place of longing, romanticised as a world full of magic and temptations, and also as a refuge against the impositions of the modern era.
That this seemingly benevolent romanticisation ultimately served above all to draw boundaries intended to suggest superiority and justify colonialism has been widely accepted since Edward Saïd; the process is today referred to as “othering”. Yet to this day, we know little about these countries and their rich cultures that goes beyond clichés. And we still tend to lump them all together out of ignorance.
What applies in general applies all the more to the current Literature: Arabic-speaking authors from around the world, as well as Iranian and North African authors reflect the present day in their writing and draw on the rich tradition as well as on current developments. Yet little of this reaches us in the bookshops, and there is even less reflection and exchange regarding current titles.
The Leukerbad International Literature Festival aims to counter this by deliberately providing a platform for authors from these countries – as well as experts who engage with their work. This is made possible in part by the partnership established in 2024 with the Sheikh Zayed Book Award (SZBA), one of the most prestigious prizes in the Arab world, based in Abu Dhabi. It recognises contributions to contemporary literature, social sciences, culture and knowledge acquisition in or about the Arab world. Litprom, an initiative of the Frankfurt Book Fair, coordinates activities in German-speaking countries. This year’s programme features two authors, Iman Mersal and Stefan Weidner, who have won the SZBA in recent years.

Was Rilke ever young?

Was Rilke ever young?

Was he ever in Leukerbad? And if so: what kind of swimming trunks would he have worn?
And the panther: would he be better off here than at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris? And the white elephant – would he prefer to be here in the summer, when the paths are dusty, when the sun shines and the rocks warm up, or in winter, when everything is covered in snow?
In this workshop, pupils from the Leukerbad lower secondary school (teacher Matea Klaric) asked precisely these kinds of questions together with the writer Rolf Hermann.
Taking poems by Rainer Maria Rilke as their starting point – from “The Panther” and “The White Elephant” to the famous sonnets – they promptly plucked the great poet from his own era and transported him straight into present-day Leukerbad.
How would Rilke write today if he were to take the cable car up to the Rinderhütte? Would he jot down poems at the thermal spa whilst enjoying his first cocktail at the pool bar at eleven o’clock? Would he ponder angels in the school playground – or rather about homework, smartphones and the feeling of being both small and huge at the same time?
The young people have taken Rilke’s images, twisted them, spun them further and transferred them into their own world. Suddenly his animals appear in new landscapes, his questions meet the questions of today, and his famous poems begin to move. The writer Rolf Hermann and the young people of Leukerbad have dared to join forces to lift the great poet off his pedestal, so as to meet him on equal terms. At the Leukerbad Literature Festival, they will present their resulting “Spoken Rilkes”.

“Die Holländerinnen” – Translation Colloquium with Dorothee Elmiger

The translation symposium associated with the festival is also celebrating its anniversary: for 20 years, international translators have been coming to Valais to work with a Swiss author on a current book. In a two-day workshop in Leuk, they embark on the sometimes very long journeys between languages, shed light on obscure passages, and seek solutions for the transfer across linguistic boundaries. The Leukerbad International Literature Festival provides the ideal stage to showcase them as virtuosos of linguistic art and cultural mediation.
The Translation Colloquium stems from a partnership with the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin (LCB), which has a global network of translator contacts, and is organised with the support of the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, the Centre de traduction littéraire Lausanne (CTL) and the Leukerbad Literature Festival.
This year, the two-day workshop focuses on Dorothee Elmiger’s novel Die Holländerinnen, for which the author was awarded the Swiss Book Prize and the German Book Prize in 2025 and which is currently being translated into many languages.

Guest authors at the translation colloquium have included to date: Peter Weber (2006), Michel Mettler (2007), Lukas Bärfuss (2008), Katharina Faber (2009), Rolf Lappert (2010), Melinda Nadj Abonji (2011), Christoph Simon (2012), Arno Camenisch (2013), Jonas Lüscher (2014), Peter Stamm (2015), Monique Schwitter (2016), Urs Mannhart (2017), Nora Gomringer (2018), Gianna Molinari (2019), Ariane Koch (2022), Yael Inokai (2023), Levin Westermann (2024), Zora del Buono (2025).

Swiss Schiller Foundation Literature Prizes 2026

Founded in 1905, the Swiss Schiller Foundation is the oldest institution in Switzerland dedicated to promoting literature. Alongside support for authors in need, it soon began awarding prizes: by 2012, the Foundation had awarded, among other things, twenty Grand Schiller Prizes, to writers such as Ramuz, Dürrenmatt, Frisch, Giorgio and Giovanni Orelli, and Erika Burkart. Literature was increasingly promoted by other stakeholders as well. The Schiller Foundation has had to reinvent itself time and again. However, with board members from all four linguistic regions, it retains a unique selling point: the simultaneous consideration of all four national languages.
Since 2012, it has been awarding its Terra Nova Prize to promising debut works, and since 2023 – in collaboration with Viceversa Literatur – it has been awarding the Viceversa Prize for Literary Translation. As the foundation received a generous bequest from a testator in 2026, it is awarding no fewer than four prizes this year.

The following will each be awarded a Terra Nova Prize:
Sagal Maj Čomafai: Fast nichts all inclusive. Verlag die Brotsuppe 2025
Noemi Nagy: Sottopelle. Samuele Editore 2025
Olivier Vonlanthen: Notre-Dame-des-Démolies. La Veilleuse 2025

The 2026 Viceversa Prize is awarded to Marina Skalova for her translation of Levin Westermann’s poetry collection Unbekannt verzogen (Luxbooks 2012): Parti sans laisser d’adresse. Cheyne 2025.
By the way: In 2024, Marina Skalova presented her work on this book to the audience in Leukerbad during a translation colloquium with Levin Westermann.

Following remarks by members of the Foundation Board, the four authors will read excerpts from their award-winning works at the trilingual awards ceremony.

Festival lounge

In cooperation with Destination Leukerbad

In 2026, every day in Leukerbad will feel a bit like a literary festival, as Leukerbad Marketing AG has set up a festival lounge with us in the Galerie St. Laurent on the village square. The lounge invites visitors to browse through books by the festival’s authors all year round and serves as the meeting place for the newly founded Leukerbad Book Club. We have also compiled interesting facts and curiosities from 30 years of festival history – and, of course, plenty of photos of the finest moments.

During the festival weekend, the festival lounge moves to the village square, joining the ZAP festival bookshop. The El Poeta bar will be serving delicious treats and snacks from the kitchen and cellar.