People still read a lot

The Höhenflug Festival 2025 is taking place in Zug: three days of readings, encounters and literature.
 

From Thursday to Saturday of this week, the Höhenflug Literature Festival Zug 2025 will focus on ‘good neighbourhoods’ – in many different facets. Project manager Theres Roth-Hunkeler is convinced that literature will continue to endure.

The Burgbachkeller in Zug and the Zug Library will be dedicated to literature from the 13th to the 15th November. The festival team, under the formal direction of Theres Roth-Hunkeler, is presenting an extensive programme featuring literary voices from Switzerland, including Martina Clavadetscher and Hanspeter Müller-Drossaart – and the latter has been given Carte Blanche. One focus is on neighbouring country of Austria, which has a lively literary scene: award winner Reinhard Kaiser-Mühlecker, Barbi Marković, a scholarship holder of the Landis & Gyr Foundation, and Patrick Holzapfel all come from there.

Several reading groups from Central Switzerland have been studying the new novel by Urs Faes, and will now have the opportunity to discuss it with the author at an event. There is also room for humour, when actress Vivianne Mösli dispenses ‘poetic pills’ for all situations in life in the library. Encountering literature is not only about texts and language, but also about social aspects, life today, proximity and distance – and conversations between readers and authors.

Great significance for Central Switzerland
‘The festival is well established in the region, and the last edition was very well received,’ says project manager and author Theres Roth-Hunkeler. Due to the considerable effort involved, it is only organised every two years, but it’s not only important for Zug, but for the whole of Central Switzerland. This is demonstrated by the joint sponsorship of the Zug Literary Society and the Central Swiss Writers' Association (ISSV), in cooperation with lit.z Literaturhaus Zentralschweiz, Stans. ‘The festival plays an important role, even if it doesn't always attract huge audiences. The name of the author certainly plays a role, and there are some very well-known names in Switzerland. But we deliberately don't want to invite those who are already well-known everywhere else. It's all about the mix.’ And she explicitly emphasises: ‘Literary education is very important to me, even on a small scale.’

Believes in literature: Theres Roth-Hunkeler, project manager of the Höhenflug Festival     Archive photo: Jakob Ineichen
 

Theres Roth-Hunkeler is now looking forward to the opening evening on Thursday at the Burgbachkeller, where National Councillor (Nationalrat) Gerhard Pfister will give the opening presentation. ‘It's rare for a politician to be both a reader and a literary critic.’ This will be followed by three days of varied literary programming, with several exciting encounters between authors and readers taking place on Saturday, from morning until evening.

‘Literature carries us through all times’
But what significance does literature have today? Theres Roth-Hunkeler: "It probably means something different to everyone, and to many who are not readers it means nothing at all. But literature broadens our horizons, brings distant things closer and illuminates the ambivalence of our existence. It requires patience and dedication, gives us the joy of reading and helps to carry us through all times, good and bad. People still read, and I really don't believe the doom-mongers who say differently. Young people today read texts on TikTok, even though it's not great literature."

 She points out that working women and men tend to have little time for reading. This has made it difficult to find younger people to succeed those who step down as members of the club committees.

Even though Theres Roth-Hunkeler is still fully involved in organising the Zug event, she is already recommending that readers make a note of the Lettera literature festival in Lucerne in March 2026.
 

Information:
The Höhenflug Literature Festival will take place from 13th to 15th November in the Burgbachkeller and the Zug Library.

More information about the programme (in German) can be found on:
www.hoehen-flug.ch