Renowned writers and international guests are landing in Buenos Aires for the 15th International Literature Festival (FILBA), which kicks off on Wednesday and will run until October 1. The guest list includes Jonathan Franzen, Mircea Cărtărescu, Francesca Manfredi, Renata Salecl, and David James Poissant, among many others.

A main event in the city’s cultural calendar, this year’s theme will focus on the power of human creativity and literature against the unstoppable force of algorithms and machines. 

“The topic was unavoidable, it couldn’t be anything else,” said festival programmer Catalina Labarca to Télam. “But we want to approach that from a human side, from flesh and blood, and try to think about what the machine will never be able to emulate about the human being.”

The official inauguration ceremony will be held at the Buenos Aires Latin American Art Museum (MALBA), with a performance by writers Mariano Blatt, Gabriela Massuh, and playwright Rafael Spregelburd, directed by Andrea Garrote. Prior to that, at 5 p.m., the art collective Una isla will stage their literature performance An Island at MALBA.

Both the inauguration and the public interview with Jonathan Franzen — on Friday, September 29 at 7.30 p.m. — will be streamed online on the MALBA’s YouTube channel.

“Faced with the culture of machines and algorithms that provide lifeless solutions to the problem of living, literature emerges from the depths of the human enigma to remind us that she is better than that,” read this year’s presentation on FILBA’s website. “Not because it desires perfection but, quite the contrary, because it is a machine that fails, a machine that feels, that deviates from plans, a machine that awaits. A machine that, the wilder it is, the more perfect it is, the more human.”

The festival will feature conferences, readings, public interviews and conversations, workshops, concerts, performances, and master classes. 

There will also be what organizers call the “B-Side,” unconventional and intimate events, such as literary tours through neighborhoods, but also the “Poetry Night,” a Friday night party in Club 911, and the “Occupied House” on Saturday 30 at Tai, featuring writers, poets, and musicians. 

All activities are free of charge — although some require a prior reservation — and will take place in seven venues across the city: MALBA, the Kirchner Cultural Center (CCK), Buenos Aires’ Alliance Française, Santander Foundation, Lalalá, Club 911 and Casa Tai.

FILBA’s international guests also include writers Brenda Navarro (Mexico), Lucía Lijtmaer (Spain), Simón López Trujillo (Chile), Alia Trabucco Zerán (Chile), Clément Bondu (France), Thibault de Montaigu (France), Daniela Tarazona (Mexico), and Nancy Huston (France).

Top local writers who will be featured include Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, Mauricio Kartun, Alejandra Kamiya, Federico Jeanmaire, Beatriz Vignoli, Sergio Olguín, Jorge Consiglio, Juan José Becerra, Juan Mattio, Inés Fernández Moreno, Fernán Mirás, Félix Bruzzone and Camila Sosa Villada, who will close the Festival on Sunday with a reading of her latest novel Thesis on a domestication at the CCK.

The 2023 FILBA program can be found here.