2023-11-23 17:34:00
“From now on, the Flip will never be what it was,” says Mauro Munhoz, artistic director responsible for the party. “Just as the world will never be what it was in the first decade of the century. And thank goodness.”
It is striking how the Paraty International Literary Festival has become a different creature in the 20 years that separate the edition that begins this Wednesday (22), and extends until Sunday (26), from that initial one on July 31 of 2003.
Nowadays one hears many complaints, and Munhoz himself receives many, about how investment in high-profile international authors has been reduced. In the first six years of the meeting, to recall a short list, people like Toni Morrison, Neil Gaiman, JM Coetzee, Orhan Pamuk and Salman Rushdie attended the event on the Fluminense coast.
“At first it was super important to bring these big names because you make money,” says the director. “Then you can expand the field of literature that, without that, would not have been possible. The latest Flips set out to explore things that are more difficult, less expected.”
Without going into the merit of literary quality, currently the guests of the main programming, especially foreigners, are less known figures who seek to expand or find the Brazilian reader. Some of this year’s bets are the Ecuadorian Mónica Ojeda, who delves into the anguish of young women in disturbing fictions; the American Christina Sharpe, who reflects on the linguistic revolution carried out by black culture; the Spanish Alana Portero, who has become an editorial phenomenon by navigating the trans experience on the outskirts of Madrid; and Akwaeke Emezi, a novelist who escapes binary genders and crafts narratives of formation between Nigeria and the United States.
The interest of the festival has been to bring marginalized literatures to the center of attention, offering a spotlight and microphone to writers from all corners, cultures previously ignored by the canon and smaller publishers. Those who closely follow the evolution of Flip remember the constant criticism about the absolute dominance of authors from the Companhia das Letras publishing house.
#Literary #festival #brings #Brazilian #foreign #writers #historic #city #Rio #Culture