Heidelberg has been a UNESCO City of Literature for ten years

Anyone who wants to become a UNESCO City of Literature must have a lively literary scene and work to preserve and promote it. Heidelberg has succeeded in doing this over the last ten years, said the Secretary General of the German Commission for UNESCO, Georg von Albrecht, in his welcoming speech at the anniversary event in Heidelberg’s Karlstorbahnhof. This was celebrated on Friday evening. In addition to a cultural program, including video greetings from all over the world.

The UNESCO program is intended to preserve cultural diversity

UNESCO – also the cultural department of the United Nations – launched the so-called Creative Cities Program twenty years ago to support cities around the world in preserving their local cultural heritage and at the same time enter into international exchange with other cities . There are different creative disciplines and one of them is literature. As of now there are more than 50 “UNESCO Cities of Literature”. Anyone who is accepted must apply and prove that literature plays a major role there. According to Heidelberg’s own statements, the decisive factor in autumn was not the long literary tradition, but the current situation: there are around 2,500 literary professionals here: authors and translators, illustrators and booksellers, publishing employees and many more.

The goal: local and international networking

One of the main goals of the UNESCO program is networking. At the international level, this is done through exchange and guest residency programs. Around 30 Heidelberg authors have been guests in other “UNESCO Cities of Literature” in recent years. And vice versa, about the same number were invited to the Rhine-Neckar region, said Heidelberg’s cultural mayor Martina Pfister (Greens) at the anniversary celebration. For example, the “Writer in Residence” program in Dilsberg (Rhein-Neckar district).

Conversely, the Heidelberg author Anne Richter, for example, had the opportunity to work on a German-Czech poetry translation project in Prague a few years ago. And just recently she was a guest in the eastern city of Tartu. She says she really enjoyed the creative and human exchange.

I believe that these international influences are a great benefit for Heidelberg.

In order to generate international exchange projects, you first had to know the local literary scene well, according to the head of the Heidelberg Cultural Office, Andrea Edel. That’s why we’ve been doing tireless networking work here for ten years.

Heidelberg’s literary scene rated the UNESCO title positively

Reasons who work in the literary industry speak positively about the UNESCO title. For them, it seems like a call to action, says the Heidelberg playwright Ingeborg von Zadow.

The title has definitely brought greater visibility to the literary scene.

In fact, a lot of new things have emerged in the last ten years. In addition to the traditional literature festival with big names, which has existed for 30 years, there is now also the Heidelberg Literature Autumn with local actors and a very diverse program. There is more collaboration between authors, poetry campaigns on the tram, a writing competition for citizens and much more. For example, the program Words in Resistancewere given a forum with the writers from the Ukrainian UNESCO literary cities of Lviv and Odessa after the start of the war.

The UNESCO title means little to many – but it is still a success

If you ask around Heidelberg residents, many of them have little use for the title “UNESCO City of Literature”. However, this is in no way defamatory. Because you don’t have to have heard of the UNESCO label to feel that something has happened in the city. The literary events have become more and more diverse and are also taking over unusual places. And there are collaborations with other UNESCO creative sectors, for example in the hip-hop sector. The benefit for the city is that awareness of each other has increased, said Heidelberg hip-hop artist Toni Landomini.

As we look to the future, cultural exchange is more important than ever and literature plays a major role in this.

According to a UNESCO evaluation, Heidelberg is one of the three activist members of the Literary City Network.