at Once Norway's LitFestBergen February 11, 2021 One afternoon back in September, when I was lockdown-weary and stir-crazy, an unexpected opportunity to be part of a Great Literary Escape showed up in my inbox. “I’m writing to invite you to a collaboration involving 12 literary festivals/scenes/houses around the world,” read the email from Teresa Grøtan, a name new to me. What a lucky day. Norway’s LitFestBergen, directed by Teresa and produced out of the Bergen House of Literature, was organizing a hugely ambitious international collaboration called Literature Live Around the World, involving 12 global lit fests. As Teresa explained, each fest would produce an hourlong program featuring literary luminaries from their respective corners of the world, with the entire event running for 12 hours straight, noon to midnight Norway time, on Friday, February 12, 2021. The whole extravaganza will livestream on partner websites, and a recording will be edited, chaptered, and available to view on some sites, including BABF’s, until Feb. 22.