ANNE CARSON, WHO APPEARS AT CITY OF ASYLUM LITFEST 2025 | PHOTO COURTESY CITY OF ASYLUM

When we are faced with a rift — amid societal change, cultural differences, language barriers — how can we riff on that perceived separation and invite connection, collaboration and conversation?

That’s the question that will be addressed by a variety of authors, poets and performers during City of Asylum’s LitFest 2025, coming Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 18-19.

All lectures are free and will be held at City of Asylum headquarters, 40 W. North Ave., on the North Side except for the 3:30 p.m. session, Oct. 18, of “Trans/Nonbinary Ecopoetics in the Garden with Julian Talamantez Brolaski, Aaron El Sabrout and imogen xtian smith,” which will be held at the Alphabet Reading Room, 1410 Monterey St., in the Mexican War Streets.

Among the festival’s highlights, Anne Carson, a MacArthur Foundation grant winner and a poet, essayist and classicist who has spent her career translating and bringing new life to ancient texts, will share two of her works: “Cassandra Float Can” (based off Aeschylus’s “Cassandra”) and “Antigonick” (based off Sophokles’s “Antigone”). 7 to 9 p.m. Saturday. An audience Q&A will follow.

LOCAL POET AND UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH ASSISTANT PROFESSOR YONA HARVEY | PHOTO BY OCEAN VUONG

The session opens on Saturday at 1 p.m. with “Black Womanhood in Pittsburgh with Yona Harvey and Tahirah J. Walker.” Local poet and University of Pittsburgh assistant professor Harvey joins Walker, an assistant professor at Point Park University, in discussing what it means to be a Black woman in a city deemed most unlivable for Black Women. It will open with a song by INEZ, a Pittsburgh-based performer who was named “Pittsburgh Music Artist of the Year” in 2020 by WYEP-FM.

DEAF COMEDIAN NUNU DAVIS | PHOTO COURTESY CITY OF ASYLUM

On Sunday, Oct. 19, at 4:30 p.m there will be a “Poetry, Comedy and Storytelling in American Sign Language,” featuring Deaf comedians NuNu Davis and Lisa McBee, and other performers. It will be hosted by Mj Shahen, the ASL Poet Laureate of Allegheny County. ASL interpretation will be provided for the hearing folks.

BOOKER PRIZE WINNER KIRAN DESAI | PHOTO BY MICHAEL SHARKEY

LitFest wraps Sunday, from 7 to 8 p.m., with a presentation by Booker Prize winner Kiran Desai, who recently published her latest novel, “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny.” She will talk on “Love & Family, India & America, Tradition & Modernity.” She won the 2006 Booker Prize for “The Inheritance of Loss.”

For a full schedule and (free) tickets, go here.