29^th Leukerbad International Literary Festival

Moderators

As every year, experienced moderators will introduce the readings and lead the conversations.

Mustafa al-Slaiman is an Arabic- and German-language literary translator and interpreter for conferences. In addition, he works as an editor at KALIMA Abu Dhabi, is a member of the scientific committee of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award, and is the Managing Director of the Forum for Arab-German Dialogue HIOUAR. He lives in Berlin.

Lukas Bärfuss, born in Thun, Lukas Bärfuss is a playwright, novelist, and essayist. His most recent stage productions were Das grosse Welt­theater (The Great World Theater) in Einsiedeln and Die Krume Brot (his 2023 novel, The Crumb of Bread) in Basel. He is on a performance tour with the violinist Gwendolyn Masin for The Journey. In his monologue Sex mit Ted Cruz!, written for the Schauspielhaus Zurich, he addresses the topics of political violence and opportunism. He is a moderator and curator for series Zukunft der Demokratie (The Future of Democracy) at the Schauspielhaus Hamburg.

Jürgen Jakob Becker: Translation Colloquium.

Thorsten Dönges is a cultural mediator, curator, and moderator of literary events. Since 2003, he has worked at the Literarischen Colloquium Berlin (LCB), where he is responsible for German language literature programming, leads the prose writers’ workshop, and edits the journal Sprache im technischen Zeitalter.

Eliane Fitzé, has a doctorate in Slavic Studies. She teaches and researches Russian and South Slavic literature at Fribourg University (Switzerland) and works as a moderator and cultural mediator (for the ‘Bern Eastern Europe Reading Series’, which she initiated, as well as for Sofa Readings and the Solothurn Literary Festival, among others).

Stefan Gmünder was born in Bern and has lived in Vienna for the past 32 years, where he works as an editor for the daily newspaper Der Standard and the literary journal Volltext. From 2015 to 2019, he served on the jury of the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize. 2021 he was awarded the Austrian State Prize for Literary Criticism. Various book publications (including Die Republik Nizon).

Irene Grüter was born in 1979 and studied German literature and history in Bern and Berlin. She then worked as a freelance cultural journalist in various media. Since 2007, she has worked as a moderator and editor at Radio SRF2 Kultur in Basel.

Kerstin Holm, born in Hamburg, studied Russian and German languages and literatures as well as musicology. She joined the arts editorial board of the FAZ in 1987. From 1991 to 2013, she was the cultural correspondent at the FAZ for the region of the former Soviet Union and was based in Moscow. Her publications include Das korrupte Imperium (The Corrupt Empire, 2003), Rubens in Sibirien (Rubens in Siberia, 2008), Moskaus Macht und Musen (Moscow’s Power and Muses, 2012). She was an editor in the FAZ feuilleton, specializing in Russia and Eastern Europe until 2024 and is now freelance.

Benjamin Pécoud: Translation Colloquium.

Christian Ruzicska was born in 1970 and studied German literature and philosophy at the Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-University in Bonn. He is a co-founder of Tropen Press and in 2011, he founded the Secession Literature Press.

Monika Schärer worked for SRF for over thirty years in front of and behind cameras and microphones. She presented culture, knowledge and travel programmes such as: neXt, Einstein, Kontext, einfachluxuriös. With her own production company, she has produced and realised TV documentaries. She is involved in cultural mediation and leads panels on cultural and socio-political topics. She is on the board of Cuisine sans frontières and Fantoche.

Raphael Urweider, born in Bern, is a poet, playwright, translator, and musician. He has published several volumes of poetry and written plays with Ntando Cele, Samuel Schwarz, Pedro Lenz, Matto Kämpf, and others. This year the play Wasted Land, for which he wrote the script, premiered at the Theatre Vidy in Lausanne. His works include Wildern (Poaching, 2018), Alle deine Namen (All Your Names, 2008), Lichter in Menlo Park (Lights in Menlo Park, 2000).

Stefan Zweifel works as a freelance writer and curator in Zurich. He has translated works by de Sade, Rousseau, and Proust, and hosted the Literaturclub of the SRF until 2014. With Juri Steiner, he recently presented the exhibition Der erschöpfte Mann (The Exhausted Man) at the Zurich Landesmuseum. He is the artistic director of the Eventi letterari Monte Verità.