Kosmopolis 2023

Eva Baltasar, Sara Mesa, Eider Rodríguez and Andrea Gumes

Family Lexicons

From different literary geographies that unfold in Catalan, Basque and Spanish, three of the most significant authors of their generation speak with journalist Andrea Gumes of the centrality of the concept of family in their works.

David Farrier, Alicia Kopf and Valentí Sallarès

The Library of Ice

David Farrier and Alicia Kopf follow the traces of humanity in the landscapes of our planet, and water, ice and the rest of the elements become an archive of history, a sort of library that offers us reading keys for the transformations that are yet to come. 

Carme Riera and Gemma Ruiz

Of Women and Literature

Dialogue between the only two women with the distinction of having been awarded the Premi Sant Jordi (St George Prize) for the novel in the last twenty years. Gemma Ruiz, a well-known journalist who made her literary debut in 2016 with the novel Argelagues, celebrates another great ...

Virginie Despentes, Alana S. Portero and Berta Gómez Santo Tomás

Despite everything

Two of the most vigorous representatives of contemporary feminism, the writers Virginie Despentes and Alana S. Portero talk with journalist Berta Gómez Santo Tomás about love, identity, the culture of cancellation and how to move forward despite everything.

Poetry Slam

Undersea Rhapsody

The earliest literature was oral. It is the human voice that transmits myths, stories, songs, and humanity’s memories. The oral word, recited, sung, and brought up to date, is one of the identifying features of Kosmopolis, this time in the form of an “underwater rhapsody”, ...

Jeanette Winterson and Anna Guitart

Ghostly Intelligence

Jeanette Winterson, one of the most stunning creators in British literature today, talks with journalist Anna Guitart about ghost stories, to go back to the universal topic of love, and to question how technology affects our humanity.

Borja Bagunyà, Aleix Plademunt, Joan Llort and Tarta Relena

Odysseus, Sirens, and Robots in the Mediterranean of the Twenty-First Century

In this surprising conversation, five fans of the Mediterranean - the writer Borja Bagunyà, the photographer Aleix Plademunt, the oceanographer Joan Llort and Tarta Relena, a duo of singers of ancient and electronic music - present unfinished projects, all of which are related with Homer’s stories, and the search for their traces in the Mediterranean of today. The present makes a new reading of the classics, but the classics make a new reading of the present.

Mahi Binebine and Manuel Forcano

The Written Morocco: The Reality of a Novel

The literary voice of Mahi Binebine gives a raw but poetic account of the most serious social problems afflicting the southern shores of the Mediterranean, among them mafia groups, violent Islamism, discrimination against women, illegal immigration, and social and political repression in the country under a regime of an absolute monarchy.

Taller Estampa and Jorge Carrión

The Unknown Voice

The Estampa collective presents a literary experiment of fictionalising the voices of whales, on the basis of an archive of the sounds they make and then transforming this, by means of models of artificial experiments, into a speculation about climate change on the seabed. We present the results ...

Sebastià Perelló, Sebastià Alzamora and Llucia Ramis

Insularities

With the sea as backdrop, this conversation moderated by Llucia Ramis between three islanders by birth is an invitation to dive into the effects that insularity can have in literature, and how literature can or cannot represent it.

Nariné Abgarian and Marta Nin

Writing Inland

The intersection between sweetness, humour and tragedy is the space that Narine Abgaryan chooses to inhabit to narrate the lives of ordinary people in Armenia and tell us about their mundane concerns, small victories and subtle vendettas. In this session,  Abgaryan talks with her ...

David Abulafia, Isabel Soler and Manel Ollé

History of Okeanós

 The influence of the oceans on history, culture and politics is the backbone of this multifaceted conversation with historian David Abulafia and the expert in transoceanic voyages in the Renaissance Isabel Soler, moderated by Manel Ollé,

Philippe Sands and Berna González Harbour

Act of Defence

One of the most relevant and unique British authors talks about his dual career as a writer and lawyer: his work to ensure that crimes against humanity do not go unpunished and how literature allows us to explore the presence of evil in the human condition.

Tsitsi Dangarembga and David Guzman

Writing; Transforming the World

In this session, the writer, film director, and feminist activist Tsitsi Dangarembga dialogues with journalist David Guzman about her literary pathway and about how literature can shed light on the inequalities and oppressions that continue to beset us.

Salman Rushdie and Lisa Appignanesi

The Victory of Words

The writer and thinker Lisa Appignanesi, former president of English PEN, speaks with Salman Rushdie about his condition after the ferocious attack of 2022, his latest book, Victory City, and his writing life. In Kosmopolis, we read from his work as a way of paying homage to an author who continues ...