Domestic and International Literary Exchange Event Opens... Seoul International Writers' Festival

Online and Offline from 8th to 24th... Theme is 'Awakening'

A platform for literary exchanges between domestic and international writers will take place both online and offline from the 8th to the 24th. It is the 'Seoul International Writers Festival,' co-hosted by the Literature Translation Institute of Korea, Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture, Seoul Design Foundation, and Incheon International Airport Corporation, and sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. This year's theme is 'Awakening.' The festival explores the role literature can play in the changed daily life due to COVID-19.

At the opening ceremony, Han Kang, the author of the novel The Vegetarian who won the Man Booker International Prize, and Mariana Enriquez, an Argentine writer recognized worldwide for Things We Lost in the Fire and Things That Are Dangerous to Smoke in Bed, will give lectures. At the closing ceremony, Choi Yoon, who received the Lee Hyo-seok Literary Award for the novel Unique Grammar, and Israeli author David Grossman, who won the Man Booker International Prize for A Horse Walks into a Bar, will have a dialogue about what shows humanity in a world changed by COVID-19.

Additionally, 33 writers from 16 countries, including Yoon Go-eun, who won the UK's Dagger Award in the translated crime fiction category for Night Travelers, Lee Mi-ye, author of the novel The Dollar Gut Dream Department Store, Ken Liu, winner of the Hugo Award for The Paper Menagerie, and Jan Wagner, recipient of the German Crime Literature Award for The Last Silence, will participate to share the fragrance of literature with readers. For more details, please refer to the official website of the Seoul International Writers Festival.