Ja! Festival 2024

In 2024, we picked up the gauntlet thrown from a dark, damp alleyway in Prague: the worldwide celebration of the centenary of Franz Kafka's death. The legacy of the great German-language writer ran through much of the programme from a wide range of perspectives. His singularity—at once profoundly influential and utterly inimitable—his literary universe, so compact in scale yet inexhaustible in meaning, and his humour, so often overshadowed by the darker readings of his work, offered the perfect territory for a festival like ours. And beyond Kafka, we finally welcomed a long-awaited guest: Zadie Smith joined us at the Ja! Festival for the very first time.