International Literature Festival Utrecht

The ILFU is a new and innovative international literature festival in Utrecht, the Netherlands, that transformed various well-known literary events that had already existed for decades, into one big, two weeks lasting celebration of literature. The 2018 edition of the festival received 200 authors, translators and artists and more than 21,000 visitors, thereby becoming at once the biggest literature event of the low countries. For two weeks, the ILFU Festival aims to give literature the pivotal place in society and public space it deserves: right in the centre of the city of Utrecht, that in turn is situated right in the heart of the Netherlands.

By covering many genres, we aim to make it a festival for everyone who identifies themselves as a ‘reader’, regardless of someone’s genre of preference. Many people, however, do not describe themselves as readers, but yet do enjoy films or Netflix series based on books, listen to the lyrics of musicians such as Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan or visit theatre plays that without literature would not have existed. To reset the boundaries of literature and thereby reaching new audiences, the ILFU festival teams up with local communities and partners such as the Dutch Film Festival, TivoliVredenburg Concert Hall, the poetry slam community and immigrant associations. The festival also covers and supports the entire Dutch publishing industry: a book market at Utrecht’s central square offers hundreds of publishers and booksellers an opportunity to present themselves and connect to audiences.

ILFU presented both headliners such as Julian Barnes, Salman Rushdie, Becky Albertalli and John Irving, as well as emerging writers in a variety of genres such as children books, young adult novels, poetry and nonfiction. And ILFU explicitely supports the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s)through its literary activities. Because we are convinced that literature has a say in who we are and how the world is organised, now and in the future. And, in our opinion, literature has the most beautiful way of saying it.