The 13th Macau Literary Festival kicks off next Friday, in an edition that will celebrate the poetic work of Luís de Camões and Li Bai, the organization announced today.
The 50th anniversary of April 25 will also be commemorated at the Rota das Letras Festival, with writer and journalist João Céu e Silva presenting his book “O General que começou o 25 de Abril dois meses antes dos Capitães” (The General who started April 25 two months before the Captains).
This year’s edition of the Literary Festival and the previous one, separated by just five months, have in common the celebration of the 5th centenary of the birth of Luís de Camões.
Kenneth David Jackson, professor at Yale University and author of several Camonian studies, will be present at Rota das Letras, as well as the Brazilian illustrator Fido Nesti, with his adaptation of Os Lusíadas for children.
The festival’s guests include Dong Xi, winner of the 11th Man Dun Prize for Literature, and Korean-born American Chang-rae Lee, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, according to a statement sent to Lusa.
The opening ceremony will highlight the life and work of Li Bai, the subject of a photography exhibition by Xu Peiwu, a Chinese artist who, over the last decade, has traveled the same paths where the poet walked more than a thousand years ago, recording the landscapes that inspired him as he wandered through vast and scattered regions of China.
During the first weekend of Rota das Letras, between March 8 and 10, several works will be presented, such as the anthology of short stories “Late Spring” by San San, one of the most awarded among young Chinese writers; “The Peking Express” by American lawyer James Zimmerman, who has lived in the Chinese capital for more than 25 years, and which tells the story of the Great Railway Robbery of 1923, the largest in China’s history and a determining factor in the evolution of the Chinese civil war.
On March 15, the festival will focus on Macanese cuisine, with authors Graça Pacheco Jorge and Annabel Jackson, and Professor Barrie Sherwood, from the University of Singapore, reflecting on the current state of Macanese gastronomy and the associated issues of cultural identity.
The following day will be dominated by women’s writing, in a dialogue that will bring together writers from Macau, Hong Kong and China, with an emphasis on the work of Sonia Leung, “The Girl Who Dreamed: a Hong Kong Memoir of Triumph Against the Odds”, considered “an important milestone in the literature of the neighboring city” and which narrates, in the first person and from the “perspective of a young woman”, the experiences of poor immigrants from China who arrived in Hong Kong in the 80s.
The penultimate day of Rota das Letras closes with a concert by Marta Pereira da Costa, considered one of the most virtuoso Portuguese guitar players today.
The Macau Literary Festival – Rota das Letras, founded by the local Portuguese-language newspaper Ponto Final, has been held since 2011.
