Ricco Bilger and René Grüninger (1942–2024) founded the Leukerbad International Literary Festival in 1996. After ten years, they placed it in the hands of Hans Ruprecht for the eleventh edition in 2006, who developed it further as a curator with great foresight. Among other things, he established the ‘Perspectives’ series of talks and the Literary Walk. From 2007 to 2021, he was supported by Anna Kulp as co-director, and from 2022 to 2025 he continued to curate the festival. Anna Kulp was festival director from 2022 to 2025; Stephan Bader joined her as the new co-director in February 2025 and will be responsible for the festival program from the 2026 edition.
Our festival co-directors: Anna Kulp (since 2007) and Stephan Bader (since 2025)
Stephan Bader is a journalist and literary mediator. He has been working at the “n-ost Network for Border Crossing Journalism” in Berlin since 2019, before that he was head of the editorial team at “Literarischer Monat”. He is also Vice President of the Sofalesungen association. He is currently familiarizing himself with the festival structures and management tasks. From 2026, he will be in charge of the festival program and will manage the festival together with Anna Kulp.
Jessica Brunner remains responsible for participant and media support, Daniel Bürgin is now in charge of our social media accounts, Martin Burkhalter looks after the hotels, and Alessandro Burri runs the festival office and sets up the infrastructure for the venues.
For 17 fantastic years, our webmaster Thomas Schaer (filmreif.ch) kept our old website alive and running. 2023 we could finally implement our long-cherished plans for migrating our site.
Since 2019, Gerhard Blättler has overseen the Festival graphics: gerhardblaettler.ch
During the Festival, we will expand our organization and moderation teams, German voices, our colleagues in the festival office, and photographers, many of whom are already a part of the Festival family.
Sponsorship
The festival is sponsored by the Leukerbad International Literature Festival Association, based in Leukerbad. The board consists of:
30th Leukerbad International Literary Festival:
