The Municipality of Coimbra will organize this month the 1st International Literary Meeting “Invisible Cities”, within the scope of the candidacy for European Capital of Culture 2027, which has Santiago de Compostela as a guest municipality.
The event, which runs from May 26 to 29, includes free activities open to the public, gatherings, moments of reading, round tables and conversations with writers, with the complete program being published in due course.
“This is another way of affirming Coimbra as a city of literature and, more broadly, of reinforcing the importance of culture for the municipality and the commitment that the City Council has dedicated to this strategic area of its public policies”, stresses the mayor, Manuel Machado.
The main objective of the initiative, which will take place annually with an international municipality invited for each edition, “is to explore the multiple relationships between the city and literature, according to Ítalo Calvino’s conviction: ” The city does not tell its past, it contains it like the lines of the hand` “.
Twinned with Coimbra, the Galician municipality of Santiago de Compostela was chosen for the year of launch of the meeting, which, over the course of the four days, will have a set of free activities open to the public and a tribute to the writer’s 40-year career Teolinda Gersão.
According to the Municipality of Coimbra, Galician writers Carlos Quiroga, Teresa Moure Pereiro, Susana Sanchéz Arins and Elias Torres Feijó, and the Portuguese Almeida Faria, Teolinda Gersão, Marlene Ferraz, Vasco Pereira da Costa participate in the I International Literary Meeting “Invisible Cities” , José Manuel Mendes, among others.
Parallel to the literary meeting, an exhibition will be promoted at the Convento São Francisco and within the framework of the “European Semester: Europe in Coimbra 2021”, which aims to enhance the book in its material dimensions, reflecting on the place it occupies in our lives, in the city, in knowledge, in leisure time, in the circulation of ideas and in education “.
The program also includes a literary residency at Casa da Escrita with the Galician writer Carlos Quiroga, who will dedicate himself to a literary project and participate in the regular activities of the city.
“The result of this experience will be published, later, in an editorial formula specially designed for the event”, says the communiqué of the municipality of Coimbra.
The I International Literary Meeting “Invisible Cities” is one of the cultural and artistic proposals that intends to involve the whole city “in a long-term cultural strategy” and “to inspire new ways of looking at and reflecting on the city”, explains Cristina Robalo Cordeiro, professor at University of Coimbra and member of the Working Group of the candidacy for European Capital of Culture 2027.
For António Pedro Pita, also a professor at the same institution and a member of the group, the initiative reinforces the “image of Coimbra as a city of literature” and “creates bridges to reach readers”.
@ Lusa/ RTP
