The Authors' Reading Month literary festival in 2021 is a series of daily literary events in Brno, Ostrava, Bratislava and Lviv, starting on July 1st and ending on August 2th.

Brought to You By
Větrné mlýny

Мистецька Рада ‘Діалог’

What is Authors' Reading Month?
Authors’ Reading Month (ARM), the largest literary festival in Central Europe, was first held in Brno in the year 2000. While starting out as a Brno-only event, it soon spread to other cities: in 2011 to Ostrava, in 2012 to Wrocław and Košice and, most recently, in 2015, to Lviv.

‘The festival takes place in the second- or third-largest cities of all participating countries,’ explain the organizers. ‘We're not really into capitals.’

The focus of the festival is twofold. On one hand, it concentrates on presenting the national literature of the hosting countries; on the other, it also selects a fifth country each year to become the ‘Guest of Honour’, and presents its literature as well. The festival starts on July 1st every year, and the participating cities host various events for the following 31 days. Two authors are introduced each day – one visiting and one local. All in all, every city will host sixty-two writers throughout the month of July, as well as over three hundred authors' readings and accompanying programme.

All readings are broadcasted live and recordings are available online.

The festival also covers a number of other activities and projects: new translations are published through the ARM Library book series, an audiovisual series of documentary films introduces the writers of the visiting country, etc.

A Year of ARM in Numbers
100 writers
4+1 countries & 5 cities
41,664 tour kilometres
24,800 visitors
6,200 online visitors
10,565 social media fans
3,100 media mentions
512 minutes of literary film essays
600 minutes of radio reporting
1,850 minutes of live radio broadcasting 
410,000 words in translation
33 books

The Festival’s History in Bullet Points
Authors’ Reading Month (ARM), the largest literary festival in Central Europe, was founded in 2000 in Brno, Czech Republic. Over the following years, it expanded
to include several other cities, such as Ostrava (CZ) in 2011, Wrocław (PL) and Košice (SK) in 2012, and, finally, Lviv (UA) in 2015. The first Guest of Honour was invited in 2015.
Traditionally, the festival culminates in the month of July, its many outreach events, however, have gradually started to take place throughout the year, bringing echoes of past festivals to different places and many other countries (e.g. through important fairs, festival, conferences etc.).

Past Guests of Honour
2020 – Hungary
2019 – Romania
2018 – Turkey
2017 – Georgia
2016 – Spain
2015 – Ukraine
2014 – Scotland
2013 – Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Switzerland
2012 – Slovenia
2011 – Poland
2010 – France
2009 – Austria
2008 – Canada
2007 – Belarus
2006 – Berlin
2005 – Slovakia

Selected Extra Activities

The Film Reader – an Audiovisual Anthology

A literary film series created during the festival, which introduces the visiting writers. These series are standalone television anthologies of contemporary world literature, presenting portraits of individual writers from the original viewpoint of international documentary film directors. In addition, they map the contemporary literature of various, mainly European, countries. Each episode has a runtime of 8 minutes and offers a freeform film essay reflecting the personality of the starring writer and their work. The series are far removed from dry (or, on the contrary, magazine-style) televised book clubs, instead offering a vibrant and interesting rendezvous with literature. This is supported by the form – a documentary essay – but also by the fact that each episode is directed by a different director. These Film Readers are broadcasted by the national televisions of Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine and the Czech Republic, and also by that year’s Guest of Honour.
Please see the following links for examples:
The Scottish Reader –
Don’t Worry, Be Scottish
The Ukrainian Reader –
Give, Ukraine, Give
The Spanish Reader –
The Brothers and Sisters of Don Quixote of La Mancha
 

The Authors’ Reading Month Library
The exclusive Authors’ Reading Month Library series is published every year, introducing writers that have made an appearance at the ARM festival. It also introduces unique books connected to that year’s Guest of Honour, which support interest in its literature and culture (e.g. language textbooks, reportage collections etc.).

Books published in this series present the festival’s materialized outputs, a footprint that remains even after the last author’s reading has ended. The series is an anthology mapping and recording the literature of each year’s Guest of Honour, reflecting the work of the 31 visiting writers. The basic concept consists of 31 volumes with a stylish, yet economic design; in addition, these books do not contain excerpts, but always complete texts: a poetry or short-story collection, a short novelette etc. Each text is 50–100 standard pages long (ca. 12.500–25.000 words). 

The MAČ365.CZ Online TV
These commentaries are either grouped together under one topic (e.g. When Images Are Not Enough, A Dictatorship of Information, The Ukrainian Reader, The Scottish Referendum, etc.), or published as standalone instalments reflecting individual events, such as anniversaries, obituaries or prizes. The MAČ365.CZ projects keeps the festival alive throughout the year, and even more so during the event itself, when it is used a platform for broadcasting readings from all five participating European cities. Starting in 2018, the project will also have a base in Poland, Macedonia and Finland, and will become accessible to the English-speaking audience.