Press office

22 august 2019

Revision St. Petersburg Book Festival at New Holland Island

From September 5 to 8, the second St. Petersburg international book festival, Revision, is taking place at New Holland Island. Revision is an intellectual literature fair and a big city celebration with an extensive events program. Revision is organized by the New Holland: cultural urbanization project.

This year, the fair of intellectual and children’s literature from large and independent publishers is happening in the courtyard of the Bottle House and there will be a parallel educational program at various venues on the island. Among the key events at Revision are the premiere of the first documentary about Vladimir Sorokin Sorokin Trip, with the participation of authors Anton Zhelnov and Yuri Saprykin, and a speech from the leading French sociologist Luc Boltanski — Reality against reality: a study of political metaphysics in the twentieth century. Included in the festival’s extensive program there are also round tables, lectures, poetry panels, film screenings, discussions, book presentations, meetings with authors and a series of discussions in the Vodka Room.

The second series of Petersburg Text books, which bring together St. Petersburg authors from different genres who have created the mythology of the city in the 20th century, are being printed especially for the festival. This year, among them will be the writer Leonid Dobychin, literary critic Tatyana Nikolskaya, as well as film critic Sergei Dobrotvorsky. Separately, a reference map of St. Petersburg bookstores and a book in Braille will be published in collaboration with the State Library for the Blind and Visually Impaired.

The theme of the second Revision festival is Reality outside itself and the return of magical consciousness to actuality. This process is associated with the crisis of big ideas, disappointment in the prospects of the future and a break with a centuries-old cultural tradition that can no longer describe the new world. The Revision Festival explores the cultural potential of this gap, which has its own distinct life: the metaphysical undercurrent of the modern world, which replaces religious and scientific traditions for new people.

The festival’s mission is to create a platform for the first international book festival in St. Petersburg and bring together not only leading publishers of intellectual literature and independent bookshops, but also various city initiatives that work in cultural education and production.

Curators of the festival: Konstantin Shavlovsky, Anna Izakar, Sasha Akhmadshchina.

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