The festival's focus is on contemporary developments in prose and poetry from all around the world which are reflected in its subsections Literatures of the World, Reflections, Speak, Memory, Specials and International Children's and Young Adult Literature.
The festival is an event of the "Internationale Peter-Weiss-Gesellschaft" and Berliner Festspiele under the patronage of the German U.N.E.S.C.O.