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AuthorFest!

Celebrating great authors from around the world at UT and the greater Knoxville area

The AuthorFest series was established in Spring 2015 as a way to publicly celebrate the world's most influential writers and their many contributions to human life and thought.  It represents a collaboration of UT's departments of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures and English, the Knox County Public Library, and a host of other participating departments and offices on the UT campus. The series brings in major experts from the US and abroad, facilitates book clubs and reading groups, and produces theatrical, artistic, and scholarly engagements with great authors' creative work. At these festivals, UT students, faculty, staff, and the greater Knoxville community enrich their lives by coming face to face with world literary heritage.

Upcoming Festival:

GaboFest

Celebration of Gabriel  García Márquez
March 22-23, 2022

Previous Festivals

  • McCarthyFest
    Celebrating the writing of Cormac McCarthy
    November 1-2, 2018
  • ChekhovFest
    Celebrating the writing of Anton Chekhov
    October, 2017
  • AustenFest
    Celebrating the writing of Jane Austen
    April 5-7, 2017
  • LispectorFest
    Celebrating the writing of Clarice Lispector
    October 19-21, 2016
  • Melville Festival
    Celebrating the writing of Herman Melville
    April 7-8, 2016
  • GoetheFest
    Celebrating the writing of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
    November 12-13, 2015
  • Tolstoy Festival
    Celebrating the writing of Leo Tolstoy
    April 23-24, 2015

Future Festivals

  • George Eliot (TBD)
  • Langston Hughes (TBD)

Propose a Festival


AuthorFest events have been sponsored by: 

Departments of Modern Foreign Languages and LiteraturesDepartment of EnglishDepartment of Religious StudiesDepartment of Theatre

as well as

UT LibrariesUT Humanities Center • The Mildred Haines and William Elijah Morris Lecture Endowment • Hodges Better English Fund • Knox County Public Library

The flagship campus of the University of Tennessee System and partner in the Tennessee Transfer Pathway.