TRUTH THE THEME OF THE BERGEN INTERNATIONAL LITERARY FESTIVAL 2025
Is the search for truth naive in today's world? Or is the search for truth the very purpose of life - and of art?
Bergen International Literary Festival, the seventh edition in a row, asks this question.
Ever since antiquity, the concept of truth has been the starting point for enquiry and debate. In today's society, with the use of artificial intelligence, new wars and increasing polarisation in the media and in the world, we can, consciously or not, choose, edit or even buy the ‘truth’.
Reflecting our time
From 5 to 9 February 2025, around 100 authors and other artists from 22 different nations will be presented on stage at the House of Literature.
“This year, the festival especially reflects our time,” says festival director Teresa Grøtan.
“As an example of this, we have an event that takes religious faith seriously and at the same time addresses one of the most difficult conflicts we face today. A panel with priest Trond Bakkevig, imam Senaid Kobilica and rabbi Joav Melchior will discuss Moses - the religious figure who is central to all three religions, and who, in religious texts, led the Israeli people out of slavery in Egypt. Can a shared respect for Moses form the basis of a dialogue and inspire cooperation amongst people belonging to the faiths of Christianity, Judaism and Islam?
There will be a celebration of Palestinian literature and culture with, among others, the author Mohammed Omer, who in 2025 will publish the book The Pleasures of Living in Gaza. The book opens with a scene from Rafah where the postman arrives with the Norwegian newspaper Morgenbladet, at which Omer was a correspondent for a time:
- “It took months for the newspaper to arrive, but I could still smell Oslo between the pages. In the darkest nights, when the attacks came, when the blood ran in the streets and Khalil Abu Sahwish and Akram Am Hamfra were killed in the neighbouring house, I went home and filed my article, and in that lonely night I opened the drawer and smelled the newspaper, desperate to smell the paper, to cleanse my lungs of the smell of blood,” Omer writes in an email ahead of his visit to the festival in Bergen.
Truth in prison
What does truth mean to inmates in Bergen prison? During the autumn, a group of inmates participated in a writing course on the theme, and at the festival they will be joined by author and prison librarian Eivind Riise Hauge to discuss what the concept means to them and whether writing can work as therapy. Riise Hauge himself will also be interviewed about his latest novel by a former inmate whom he used as a ‘consultant’ during the writing process.
During the festival, there will be a seminar on the potential pitfalls that critics may face when encountering international poetry, a conversation on plagiarism in fiction and in academia, a conversation on Hamsun's encounter with the Sámi when Pan is translated into Lule Sámi and Growth of the Soil is given a Sámi perspective, a debate on NATO's future role in the world, and a debate on truth in journalism.
“Our goal for the festival is to put together a rich programme in terms of literary style and tone - a festival that broadens our view of literature, people and the world,” says Grøtan.
The eternal love
What can the term ‘truth’ add to literary works about belief, meaning and morality, justice, gender, sex, or the eternal theme of love? Peruvian Gabriela Wiener, whose current novel Huaco Portrait (translated from Spanish), has received a lot of attention in the Norwegian press this autumn, is coming to the festival to talk about the book, but also because she is one of four authors who have written commissioned essays on the festival theme of Truth”. Swedish Johannes Anyuru, Nigerian Abubakar Adam Ibrahim and Indian Tishani Doshi's new essays will be published in Norwegian in the literary magazine Vinduet and read and discussed at the festival.
The title of the event with Margreth Olin is Dear Mum and Dad and it is a discussion about the novel about her mother and the film about her father, which will also be screened at the festival. Other critically acclaimed and award-winning authors at the festival include Kathrine Nedrejord, Johan Harstad, Marjam Idriss, Brynjulf Jung Tjønn, Anna Fiske, Mimir Kristjánsson, Sumaya Jirde Ali and Kristina Quintano. Several of them will also participate in the festival's school programme.
As usual, authors from Western Norway are well represented with Gunnhild Øyehaug, Agnes Ravatn, Einar Økland, Grethe Fatima Syed, Pedro Carmona Alvarez, Eivind Riise Hauge, Henning Bergsvåg, Fredrik Hagen, Eira Søyseth, Sandra Lillebø, Hilde Sandvik and John Olav Nilsen and many others.
See the full programme and buy tickets here.