Join us for an evening of literature and conversation. In collaboration with The Art of Freedom (EUNIC DC) and the Festival Neue Literatur in New York, the Zeitgeist Literature Festival in Washington DC – co-organized by the Austrian Cultural Forum Washington, the Goethe-Institut Washington, and the Embassy of Switzerland – presents Guests and Ghosts, which will feature readings by, and a conversation among, authors Tanja Paar (Austria), Michael Lentz (Germany), and Laura Vogt (Switzerland).
Guests and Ghosts brings together acclaimed German-language writers Tanja Paar, Michael Lentz, and Laura Vogt, who explore history, inheritance, belonging, and accountability in their recent work, and how forces beyond their characters’ control shape their conscious and unconscious choices. The authors will read from their books, discuss how they deploy literary tactics to expand on inherited notions of hospitality and its opposites, and explore how history haunts their characters and plots. The conversation will be moderated by Alta L. Price.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS AND MODERATOR
Image © Pamela Rußmann
Tanja Paar | Austria
Tanja Paar writes prose, plays and essays. She studied philosophy, German and history in Graz, Lausanne and Vienna, where she now lives and writes, working for theatre and various publications. Her books include The Trembling World (Haymon Verlag, 2020), The Unscathed (Haymon Verlag, 2018), and Am Semmering (Residenz Verlag, 2025). She has received numerous awards and prizes for her writing, including the Elias Canetti Scholarship and the Robert Gernhardt Prize. Her blog, Mama geht studieren (Mama’s Going to Uni), described her experience studying computer sciences. Tanja Paar’s work incorporates different disciplines and media. In 2024 she was a fellow of the Literature Forum at the Brecht House in Berlin.
Book: The Trembling World
Image © Victor Pattyn
Michael Lentz | Germany
Michael Lentz is a distinguished author and musician known for his experimental texts and sound poetry. Lentz’s prolific output spans novels, short stories, plays, radio dramas, poetry, and compositions for a variety of ensembles. His 2007 novel, Pazifik Exil (S. Fischer Verlag), explored the German-speaking exile community in Los Angeles around figures such as Bertolt Brecht, Lion Feuchtwanger, and Arnold Schoenberg. Since 2006, Lentz has served as Professor of Creative Writing at the German Literature Institute in Leipzig. He has received numerous awards, including the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize (2001) and the Walter Hasenclever Literature Prize (2012). His most recent novel, Schattenfroh. Ein Requiem (S. Fischer Verlag), was published to critical acclaim. Lentz lives in Berlin and Leipzig.
Book: Schattenfroh
Image © Hannes Thalmann
Laura Vogt | Switzerland
Laura Vogt, born in 1989 in eastern Switzerland, studied cultural studies and creative writing. Her fourth novel, "Das Jahr des Kalks", was published in 2026 (Dörlemann Verlag). Her two previous novels have been translated into English: "Woman, Idle" and "What concerns us" (both Héloïse Press, UK). Her work has been recognized with various grants and scholarships, most recently in 2025 with a scholarship from the Kunst + Kultur Foundation as part of the German Prize for Nature Writing. She lives with her family near St. Gallen, Switzerland.
Book: The Year of Chalk / Woman, Idle
Image © Beowulf Sheehan
Alta L. Price | USA (Moderator)
The conversation will be moderated by Alta L. Price, a publishing consultant and translator who specializes in literature and nonfiction texts on art, architecture, design, and culture. Her work was awarded the 2013 Gutekunst Prize, and has been featured on BBC Radio 4, the European Literature Network, Specimen, Words Without Borders, among others. Price has translated more than 40 books from Italian and German into English and has received the 2025 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Translation Fellowship.
ABOUT THE ART OF FREEDOM (EUNIC DC)
The Art of Freedom: Voices of Expression from Europe to America is a dynamic cultural initiative by the EUNIC cluster in Washington D.C., exploring freedom of expression through the power of the arts. Through artistic collaborations, public debates, and immersive experiences, European and American voices come together to reimagine freedom, creativity, and democracy across the Atlantic.