«There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.»

Since 2016, the Literaturhaus Zürich has presented an extraordinary festival on the last weekend in February. Isabelle Vonlanthen, employee and now deputy director, initiated and developed it.

Isabelle, Nicola Steiner took over as director of the Literaturhaus from Gesa Schneider in September 2023. How long have you actually been there?

Ever since. I started in 2011 and since then I've been responsible for the programme and projects together with the director, and since September I've also been the deputy director.

How did the geographical orientations that have made up the festival so far come about?

It was more of a spontaneous idea in 2016. After the Arab Spring, I was very interested in the situation there. So I looked for sponsors, as we couldn't do it on our normal budget, and we organised this three-day festival with guests from Egypt, Lebanon and Syria. It was great. There were insights beyond the disaster reports and the headlines. Stories about people. Confirmed by the success of the first edition, we have endeavoured to shed light on little-known regions every year. And the feedback from both the audience and the participants has been very positive. We have always invited all festival guests for five days, not just for the festival programme. We ate together, visited publishers, went on excursions and tried to network. And many said that they hardly have the opportunity to meet up in such a relaxed atmosphere at home. It was of course wonderful to hear that they know of no other festival where this networking is so central and they are also allowed to be human.

In terms of content, the festival is different this time, with a thematic focus. Why?

There are various reasons for this. We wanted to get away from these national categorisations, which always have a limiting effect, and try something new, although it is of course double-edged. The public is very interested in lesser-known regions and I also find that exciting. For the next few years, however, we will now look at how we can establish a festival that is still international but thematically orientated. Of course, focussing on a theme also opens up great creative possibilities.

This year's theme is "On Disappearance". How did you come up with that?

I can't say for sure. It was suddenly there. Obviously, the times we live in create a feeling of many losses. Things seem to be unravelling in Europe, the world order is changing. My generation grew up confident, the world seemed stable, freedom seemed within reach after the end of the Cold War, there was a future, you could rely on things. A lot of that now seems to be eroding. Disappearance is omnipresent. Especially in art. Transience is a major driving force in literature. But the awareness of transience also intensifies the perception of the moment. It is also about accepting (one's own) transience and facing it with courage, resilience and joy in the moment. If nothing were to disappear, nothing would be created. There is a lot of reality, present, future and therefore social relevance in disappearance. Nevertheless, the programme is not about any kind of doomsday pathos. It should be fun, humorous, light, hands-on and interdisciplinary.

Tell us something about the programme and the participants.

I quickly realised that I wanted John Burnside for the opening. I've admired his work for years, and it also fits thematically. He writes about his father, whose absence characterised his childhood, about death, actually about a world that is never quite real, as if the real happens behind a curtain. His lyrics remind me of lines by Leonard Cohen: "There is a crack in everything - that's how the light gets in". He is one of the great European storytellers and a very humorous and lively person. It also quickly became clear that we would go on a city walk with the walking artist Marie Anne Lerjen. There are many places in Zurich that have disappeared from view.

Then I saw Helgard Haug's play "All right. Good night" at the Theaterspektakel and knew that I wanted to invite her too.

Helgard Haug is also part of the Rimini Protokoll theatre group, isn't she?

Yes, exactly. Two things are interwoven in her play, which is also available as a novel. The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in 2014 and her father's dementia at the same time. A magnificent text. Here the physical disappearance of 240 people, there the gradual mental disappearance of a loved one.

In addition to readings, the programme also includes a number of panels.

True. The philosopher Armen Avanessian will be discussing the management of fleetingness and we have invited the choreographer Cathy Marston and the artist Esther Eppstein, to talk to him about the intensity and fleetingness of the moment. Karpi, on the other hand, who is not only a comedian but also an AI expert, will put forward the provocative thesis at the festival that the advancement of AI translation technologies could render human writing and reading skills superfluous. Author and translator Ann Cotten will take the opposite stance.

I'm also looking forward to the panel on literature in war. We instinctively think that art can explain conflicts, bridge divides, raise our voices. But doesn't the opposite often happen? That culture does not heal and help in war, but disappears, that people fall silent and no longer find a language? Alongside Tanja Maljartschuk the psychoanalyst Jurko Prochasko has been invited. I very much hope that he can come from Lviv. He is of military age and we had to justify the relevance of his participation when he was invited because of his exit permit. However, I am of the opinion that it is important to keep talking about Ukraine so that it is not forgotten.

How can I imagine the announced late night show?

Like an entertaining festival. The festival isn't just supposed to be discursive. The idea was to simply have something relaxed: Show, music, dance, an open bar. Especially with this theme. Anja Zag Golob and Simone Lappert, who read and discussed on a panel in the afternoon, performed their poems at the show in the evening. Anja writes very sensual poetry and presents it together with the musician IOKOI. And "Oh darling, you tear me apart" is a project in which female artists have been invited to create texts, videos and music in a dilapidated industrial building near Mels. I don't know the show schedule yet, but I'm really excited.