What is Real? A Weekend of Ideas on the Banks of the Danube by Emma House, introduced by Rosie Goldsmith
In November this year I made my annual pilgrimage to the Danube town of Krems in Lower Austria. It’s a highlight of my year when I get to meet, interview and spend quality time with some of Europe’s leading voices at the renowned European Literature Days/Europäische Literaturtage (ELIT). I’ve been participating for over a decade, each year tackling a different theme with different writers. This year, from 20th – 23rd November, I was delighted to bring over two very impressive colleagues from the UK, Clare Clark and Emma House, both who know the UK book trade inside-out as writers, critics and consultants. They made such positive contributions intellectually to this year’s topic, What is Real?, and, equally, as wonderful human beings, delighting everyone they met. Emma House, in her role as international publishing consultant and an expert on the impact of AI on the booktrade, wrote the following feature on her visit to Krems for the BookBrunch online magazine, and she has kindly given us permission to reprint it here. *At the end of Emma’s article there are also some valuable links to the festival photos, videos and blogs, so that you too can have an idea of what we discussed under the headline, WHAT IS REAL?
By Rosie Goldsmith
There’s a church in Krems – a small Austrian town on the Danube of just under 40,000 people, an hour northwest of Vienna – that once a year becomes a sanctuary not for worship but for words. The Klangraum in the Minoritenkirche is the home of the European Literature Days festival, ELIT: a European forum for debate of literature and ideas with writers and thinkers from across Europe, which has taken place in Krems and previously Spitz since 2009 under the artistic direction of author and profound connoisseur of contemporary European literature Walter Grond. As my taxi wound its way from Vienna airport towards the wine-growing area of the Wachau Valley and the town of Krems – past the town’s more notorious institution, the prison where Josef Fritzl is held – I found myself sharing a taxi transfer with International Booker Prize winner Georgi Gospodinov. Within minutes I realised this would be four days in excellent company.
The theme this year – What is real? – could hardly have been more timely. Reality feels slippery these days, under pressure from technology, politics, and the stories we tell ourselves. The programme reflected that sense of uncertainty and curiosity: book presentations, performances, conversations, even a tea ceremony and a literature-infused walk through the town. On stage and in the audience, you heard a happily chaotic swirl of German, English, Bulgarian, Finnish, Dutch, Hungarian and Spanish. Among those taking part, alongside Gospodinov, were Martina Hefter, Raphaëlle Red, Jonas Lüscher, Nava Ebrahimi, Christoph Peters, Gabriela Wiener, Pajtim Statovci, Hanna Bervoets and many others – a gathering that drew critics, academics and dedicated readers from across Austria.
I was there thanks to broadcaster and journalist Rosie Goldsmith – who also runs the European Literature Network and the European Writers Festival in the UK (returning to the British Library in May 2026) – joining author and literary critic Clare Clark for conversations on the festival theme. On stage Rosie and I unpacked the impact of artificial intelligence on the publishing industry: the cybersecurity risks, what it might mean for authors, for creativity, and even the future of education. Rosie and Clare delved into In the Full Light of the Sun, Clark’s novel set in 1920s Berlin about the discovery – or perhaps fabrication – of 32 “new” Van Gogh paintings. Both discussions circled the same question: who gets to say what’s real?
The festival’s finale delivered a moment that grounded all that abstraction in something urgent and human. Austrian author and journalist Eva Menasse was awarded the Austrian Book Trade’s Honorary Prize for Tolerance in Thought and Action – a recognition of her fierce, precise voice in the cultural and political debates reshaping Europe. Menasse, who lives in Berlin and Vienna, has long been acclaimed for novels such as Vienna and Darkenbloom (the latter published in the UK by Scribe, translated by Charlotte Collins), but in recent years she has also become an influential essayist, speaking plainly where others might stay silent. She co-founded PEN Berlin in 2022 and has been a forceful presence in European public life.
Presenting the award, Benedikt Föger, president of the Austrian Publishers and Booksellers Association, praised Menasse for her courage: “In times of growing polarization, political simplification, and aggressive discourse, Eva Menasse raises her unmistakable voice – nuanced, uncomfortable, and precise.”
The panegyric was delivered by political scientist Ivan Krastev, who captured the essence of Menasse’s writing – its intimacy and its demand for accountability. Her work, he noted, excavates the past rather than lectures about it: complex, disturbing, and comforting at the same time. She restores lost voices and reveals the gaps in our collective memory, especially around the Holocaust and antisemitism, which have remained central to her worldview since her earliest reporting.
Krastev highlighted three debates in which Menasse’s voice has been particularly brave: the cultural flashpoints of identity politics and cancel culture; Europe’s reckoning with Russia’s war on Ukraine; and Austria’s ongoing confrontation with the legacy of the Holocaust. Eva’s voice is powerful, he said, heard even by those like me who do not read German. It testifies that we Europeans share dreams, but our nightmares remain strictly national.
As applause echoed through the church, it struck me that the question “What is real?” can be answered at least partly by the quality of the voices we choose to listen to. In Krems, for a few days, reality felt tangible: shaped by literature, challenged by ideas, and anchored in the courage of writers like Eva Menasse – who refuse to let silence rewrite history.
By Emma House
Originally published in Bookbrunch. Reposted here with permission.
*If you’d like to read more about the 2025 European Literature (ELIT) days and all our discussions, the ELIT website is in both English and German and features photos, blogs, videos and authors biographies. The Daily ELIT Blogs are accessible here. And here’s the Link to ELIT’s very own YouTube, where you’ll find videos of most of the events.
Emma mentioned the powerful speech made by the author Eva Menasse at the closing event in defence of freedom of speech and tolerance. The event was filmed and reported by Austrian media, so with thanks to them we can share it with you here, in extracts and in full (in German). And finally, we have a selection of festival photos taken by ELIT’s dedicated photographer, Sascha Osaka.
Photo by Rosie Goldsmith
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