The Tolerance Talks 2025 opened in Fresach on June 1st with an extraordinary reading by Carinthian author Lydia Mischkulnig and a brilliant performance on the significance of historical women’s literature by the two authors Elisabeth Hafner and Regina Klein. The event honored Enheduanna, the daughter of the Sumerian king Sargon of Akkad in Mesopotamia, the first known female author in world history. She lived and worked as a high priestess in the Sumerian capital of Ur (now Iraq) over 4,300 years ago, and her literature found its way into everything from the Old Testament to Martin Luther’s Bible translations. The reading by Berlin cult author Peter Wawerzinek, who has written his heart out over the past forty years and is never slow to offer optimistic outlooks despite all of life’s setbacks and madness, developed just as rapidly. Musical interludes were provided by Carinthian jazz musicians Wolfgang Puschnig and Emil Kristof, as well as New York tuba player Jon Sass, interrupted only by the tri-border word and sound games of the Slovenian-Carinthian author Daniela Kocmut. A successful opening with a repeat factor (ws).
