sentences:  Every year the ilb is opened in a celebratory event.Opening Speakers have been Petina Gappah (2019), Eva Menasse (2018), Elif Shafak (2017), Cesar Aira (2016), Javier Marias (2015), Pankaj Mishra (2014), Taiye Selasi (2013), Liao Yiwu (2012), Tahar Ben Jelloun (2011), Juan Goytisolo (2010), Arundhati Roy (2009), Nancy Huston (2008), David Grossman (2007), Édouard Glissant (2006), Carlos Fuentes (2005), Antjie Krog (2004), Shashi Tharoor (2003), Dževad Karahasan (2002), Charles Simic (2001).Since 2001 more than 2500 authors from more than 120 countries presented their work at the Berlin International Literature Festival, among them Nobel Prize Winners Svetlana Alexievich, J. M. Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, Günter Grass, Doris Lessing, Herta Müller, Orhan Pamuk, Wole Soyinka, Mario Vargas Llosa, Gao Xingjian as well as Charles Simic, Han Kang, Juli Zeh, Rebecca Solnit, Monica Ali, Samantha Schweblin, Carla Guelfenbein, Yasmina Reza, Mona Eltahawy, Hanan al-Shaykh, Marie NDiaye, Dacia Maraini, Ljudmila Ulitzkaya, Bernice Chauly, Laksmi Pamuntiak und Antonio Tabucchi.