Lisbon celebrates European Literature Night

The European Literature Night will take place on Saturday in Lisbon, with reading sessions staged in spaces in the parishes of Avenidas Novas and São Sebastião and with the presence of several European authors.

Between 7pm and 11:30pm on Saturday, it will be possible to attend free staged reading sessions “giving voice to 15 European authors, an urban and literary itinerary that intersects the word with unexpected spaces in the city ”, says the organization.

This year, Belgian writer Emmanuelle Pirotte, Greek Yannis Mavritsakis, Luxembourgian Carla Lucarelli, Romanian Sorina Rîndasu and Portuguese David Machado will be present.

At the Nouvelle Librairie Française, Maria d'Oliveira will read “We Are Still Alive” by Emmanuelle Pirotte, a novel that is a survival story about a Jewish girl and a German soldier during World War II.

Yannis Mavritsakis will be in Lisbon to see a performance of the play “Vitriol / Vitrioli” by actor Henrique Gomes at the Banksy Museum. The play has already been performed at the National Theatre of Greece and the Avignon Festival in France.

In the lobby of the São Sebastião metro station, actress Carolina David will be giving voice to the stories from the short story book “Estaleiros do Desejo”, by Carla Lucarelli.

Romanian poet Sorina Rîndasu will present “The Kingdom of Dysfunction”, with a reading of poems by actor Nuno Pinheiro at the Banksy Museum.

David Machado will see excerpts from the novel “Os dias do barulho” read by actress Sónia Balacó at the Centro de Arte Moderna, part of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Published in 2024, “Os dias do barulho” tells the story of Laura, a woman whose life changes after killing an Islamic terrorist.

In addition to these five sessions, with the presence of the authors themselves, the European Literature Night will feature readings of, among others, “Kairos”, by Jenny Erpenbeck (Germany), which won the International Booker Prize, “Bad Habits”, the first work by the writer Alana S. Portero (Spain), “The Wall”, by Marlen Haushofer (Austria), and “Orbital”, by Samantha Harvey (United Kingdom), which won the Booker Prize.

According to the organization, the sessions dedicated to literature from Germany, Austria, Spain, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Poland, the United Kingdom and Romania will feature interpretation in Portuguese Sign Language.

The European Literature Night is an initiative of EUNIC Portugal, a network that brings together cultural institutes and embassies of European Union countries, founded in Prague in 2006 and which had its first Portuguese edition in Lisbon in 2013.

This initiative will take place again in June, as part of the Festas de Lisboa, after having taken place in the autumn in 2024.