Brazil: Paraty hosts Art of the Word Festival’s third edition

After two years of absence due to the new coronavirus pandemic, the Commerce Social Service (Sesc) promotes the third edition of the Art of the Word Festival (Farpa) in Paraty on the Green Coast of Rio de Janeiro state, from July 21 to 23.

The previous editions were held in Pernambuco state in 2018 and Bahia state in 2019. The program is free and open to “everyone who wants to enjoy the event and get to know the new voices of national literature, as well as those already consolidated.”

Farpa is part of the project Art of the Word – Sesc Reading Network, the most extensive national literary circuit promoted by Sesc, which, throughout this year, will take 140 artists in circulation from North to South of the country, in more than 520 activities, divided in literary creation workshops, debates among authors and oral presentations, which include poets, slammers (spoken poetry competitors), and repentistas.

The official opening of Farpa will be at 2 PM, at Sesc Santa Rita, in Paraty. Only on Saturday, July 23, the activities will start at 4 PM. According to Diogo Borges, the Literature analyst of the National Department of Sesc, the festival is a “showcase of the artists who are circulating through the Arte da Palavra this year”.

Participants include the writer, novelist, and short story writer Marcelino Freire from Pernambuco; the poet Sony Ferseck from Roraima, sharing a debate table with Elisa Pereira, a poet from Paraty; Tamy Ghannam, a “booktuber” from São Paulo, among other names.

Those participating can watch dialogues and poetic and artistic presentations, all connected to literature.

PILLARS

“Sesc has the festival as one of the pillars of our cultural policy for Brazil, which is the diffusion of the different types of literature made all over the country. We don’t have a show with authors or writers only from Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, or from the South/Southeast axis.

“We present the panorama of literature produced in the different literary strands, and we develop systematic actions. Farpa shows a little of what we develop throughout the year at Arte da Palavra,” reiterated Diogo Borges.

For example, the Literary Creation Circuit encourages young writers’ formation. Orality is a panorama of what has been developed regarding cordel and slam. And the Debate among Authors aims to show different literary fictions of prose writers in short stories, chronicles, and novels.

The festival’s program also includes a chat with the winners of last year’s Sesc Literature Award, Fabio Horácio-Castro, from Pará, winner in the novel category with “O Réptil Melancólico” (“The Melancholic Reptile”), and Diogo Monteiro, from Pernambuco, chosen as the best short story book, with the work “O que a casa criou” (“What the house has created”).

On Farpa’s first day, the new edition of Revista Palavra (“Word Magazine”), Sesc’s annual publication that celebrates national authors and literature, will also be launched.

With information from Agência Brasil