Salman Rushdie's life is slowly getting back on track. Since the attack he suffered in August of last year during a conference he gave in the United States, the writer decided to stay in the shadows for a few months. A time that he did not waste at all, since he used it to write Cuchillo, where he narrates this tragic experience. A few days ago he made an exception and was seen at the Frankfurt Book Fair, because there he was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, and next Wednesday, although electronically, he will inaugurate the Kosmopolis literary festival, which will take place will last until October 29 and has three thematic axes in this edition: freedom of expression, Morocco and oceanic literature.
The latter was the one that began to structure the entire programming, as explained this Monday at a press conference by Juan Insua and Elisabet Goula, in charge of this literary event, and Judit Carrera, director of the Center for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB). ), the place where the activities will take place. There were some questions that encouraged them to let water gain prominence, such as finding out what so engrossed Herman Melville about the vast ocean to convince him that he should lock himself away to write Moby Dick or Homer to face The Odyssey.
“The sea has always been a source of literary and mythological inspiration and continues to be the center of novels, poetry, essays, cinema and music today,” Carrera recalled, after announcing some of the 97 participants who will be seen these five days by Barcelona, like the writers Rodrigo Fresán, Enrique Vila-Matas, Alana S. Portero, Sebastià Perelló or Llucia Ramis. The festival will also have an international presence – a total of 23 names – including Virginie Despentes, Deborah Levy, Jarvis Cocker and Jeanette Winterson, among others.
“The twelfth edition will take us from ancient odysseys to the challenges posed by the Anthropocene. Recover the origin to glimpse the future and not only talk about global warming, one of the most visible effects, but also about what it means from an intellectual point of view to live in this time of profound changes,” Insua said. For all this, in addition to talking about literature, the contest aims to raise awareness about the importance of water and the state of the oceans, “but from a vision that is not apocalyptic,” Carreras stressed.
The trio of speakers highlighted the importance of freedom of expression to make all these stories visible and to “undo historical silences”, opening the door to “a committed literature that raises its voice”, with talks and debates featuring the authors Tsitsi Dangarembga, Philippe Sands or Rushdie himself. They also took advantage of the meeting to denounce the death of 57 journalists in 2022 and the imprisonment of more than 500.
Morocco, “a country in which there is not full freedom of expression” – in the words of Elisabet Goula – will also be very present in this edition with speakers such as the geographer Chadia Arab or Mahi Binebine, one of the most prestigious figures in literature. current Moroccan. All of them will try to bring the cultural and literary reality closer to attendees. “It is one of our neighboring countries and is a great unknown for many of us. The idea is to strengthen ties and make known the literary vitality that always comes to us under the shadow of prejudice and ignorance," said Carreras, recalling that "the Moroccan community is the largest foreign community in Catalonia."
Along these lines, Goula assured that they are "voices that are close to us and that have a lot to say", so the meeting aims to "weave bridges" between Catalonia and Morocco and make visible the union between both with activities such as the Ikram Bouloum concert, who claims to conceive his music as a tool to revisit one's own identity.
In addition to the usual presentations, the festival is completed with a program that includes an installation dedicated to the writer Aurora Bertrana, a poetic walk along the Besòs River, by the artist Marc Caellas, a silent opera along the Rambla, by Joana Moll , and a collective reading of the Iliad.
