Literary festival Prima Vista explores and enlarges the small world

The 18th literary festival Prima Vista that takes place from May 3 to 8, 2021 brings together the key events under the theme „Small World”. The translator and poet of Norwegian origin, Øyvind Rangøy, who was awarded the Betti Alver prize in 2019, will take on the role of the patron and add his own accent to the festival with the choice of invitees. The Latvian town Cēsis as the partner city emphasises the importance of international cultural contacts both for writers and for the festival.

The theme of the next festival was not difficult to choose. To quote the board member Berk Vaher, „Small World”, on the one hand, refers to the pre-pandemic world with lots of travelling and cultural contacts, which also entailed a burden on the environment and the fast spread of the virus in the last year, revealing the fragility of the everyday world. On the other hand, „Small World” also involves the isolation during and after the pandemic, the decrease in travelling and meeting possibilities, introspecion and attempts to enlarge the world—also by means of literature and dreaming.

We expect the participation of several foreign authors who could not attend the festival in person in 2020: Guzel Yakhina, Victor Shenderovich, Aleksei Salnikov (Russia), Jean Echenoz (France), Uwe Laub (Germany), Julio Llamazares (Spain), Katja Kettu (Finland), Lina Wolff (Sweden), Ron Whitehead (America), Mat Osman (United Kingdom). Israeli writer Etgar Keret, Irish author Colm Toibin, Latvian writer Rvins Varde and several Norwegian authors have also been invited.

Instead of the traditional week in May, the 2020 festival took place in two parts in autumn and made lots of use of webcasts and hybrid event formats. Virtual solutions will definitely be used in the future as well, but human contact is still considered supreme. An overview of the earlier festivals can be found on the festival home page at http://kirjandusfestival.tartu.ee/en/ and on social media pages.

The main organisers of the festival are NPO Literary Festival Prima Vista, University of Tartu Library, Tartu Public Library, Estonian Writers’ Union and Estonian Literary Society.

Additional information:

Annika Aas

chair of board

NPO Literary Festival Prima Vista annika.aas@luts.ee

mob: +372 5266442