Eifel Literature Festival
The Eifel Literatur Festival () is a volunteer-organized literature event held in the Eifel mountains in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate every two years as part of the state's "Cultural Summer". The aim of the festival is to raise the Eifel onto the European literature stage. The festival originated from a private initiative by Germanic scholar, Dr. Josef Zierden. In 1994, he inaugurated the Eifel Literature Festival in the town of Prüm, in the small cashier's room of a bank, as an accompanying programme for the presentation of his book "The Eifel in Literature". History Until 2001, the focus was on belletristic literature from or about the Eifel. Later the literary programme was expanded: the Eifel was to become a literary stage for authors outside the Eifel, for example, for Martin Walser, Mario Adorf and Siegfried Lenz in 2001. Having taken place for a week in the autumn, from 1994 to 1998, its duration was extended to readings from May to November. In 2006, the 7th Eifel Literature Festival went beyond the boundaries of the county of Bitburg-Prüm and recorded over 10,000 visitors at about 20 readings in the neighbouring counties of Daun (today Vulkaneifel), Bernkastel-Wittlich, Ahrweiler and Mayen-Koblenz as