Kapittel - information in English
Kapittels main venue is Sølvberget Library and Cultural Centre in the heart of the beautiful Stavanger city.
Literature and Freedom of Speech
Lyndsey Stonebridge visited Kapittel in 2024. Photo: Andrea Rocha.
Kapittel, Stavanger International Festival of Literature and Freedom of Speech, is an annual festival organised by Sølvberget Library and Cultural Centre.
Kapittel is one of the largest and most renowned literary events in Scandinavia, with a strong focus on freedom of speech and social issues.
The festival invites around 150 guest speakers and authors to our festival featuring stage conversations, lectures, readings, documentary films and a children’s program.
Kapittel aims to present new literary voices to the audience, and to be a venue for presenting a wide range of fiction and non-fiction authors from Norwegian and abroad.
In the excess of 10 000 visitors attend Kapittel every year.
Festival theme of 2026 is SEX
Kapittel – Stavanger International Festival of Literature and Freedom of Expression – turns its attention in 2026 to one of the most contested and charged aspects of human life: SEX.
The festival will explore how sexuality shapes us through literature, art, history, technology and public discourse. This year’s theme raises questions of power, identity, control, freedom, shame, class, the body, boundaries and desire. Sex is politics, culture and human experience at its most direct, vulnerable and honest. Around half of the programme will be linked to the main theme.
By choosing SEX as its theme, Kapittel also uses it as a lens through which to view literature, people, culture and the world today. The word carries a dual meaning internationally, also referring to gender – yet the festival does not shy away from its most explicit sense: how sexuality affects our lives.
Practical information
Festival passes and tickets can be purchased at kapittel.no, or at the ticket counter on the ground floor at Sølvberget (during the festival week).
Festival pass provide free admission to all events provided there are available seats. If festival pass holders want to make sure to get into certain events, they can reserve a place for 20 NOK (40 NOK for external events).
Eventual changes will be updated consecutively at kapittel.no and in social media.
