The year-round programme of literature "Narrated World" introduces top-class authors from around the world in random order. In previous years writers have included the Kirghizian Nobel Prize candidate Chingis Aitmatov, the Indian best-selling author Arundhati Roy, the Japanese Nobel Prize winner Kenzaburo Oe, the Polish "Journalist of the Century 2000" Ryszard Kapuscinski, Susan Sontag and Sahar Khalifa from Palestine.

Occident meets Orient: writers write about writers

"Occident meets Orient" stands for an exchange between literary figures in Germany and the Arab world. Over a period of three years initially, new forms of encounter between pairs of writers will be tried out: German writers will meet writers in Arab countries, in Turkey or Iran and these will then return the visit. The colleagues get to know each other in their own surroundings, get to know each others' countries, take part in readings together and write about one another, each in their own language.
Two substantial essays will complete the encounter. In the House of World Cultures the two writers will read their works together. Three readings are planned for 2003.
The Berliner Festspiele and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (working group Modernism and Islam) will be responsible for organising the project, in cooperation with the Goethe Institute, Inter Nationes, Westdeutscher Rundfunk, C. H. Beck Verlag and the House of World Cultures.