“If we have a Library and a Garden, we have everything”, a phrase from the writer Marcos Tulius Cicero (Roma, 106-43 a.C.) which faithfully translates the objectives of the Municipality of Beja in the organization of the 16th edition of Palavras Andarilhas, carried out by the José Saramago Municipal Library.
Four years after the forced shutdown resulting from the pandemic situation, the event will take place in the city's Public Garden, between Friday and Sunday (26 and 28 August), with the theme “The power of the word”, being curator Jorge Serafim, Beja's storyteller, former library clerk.
The novelties introduced in the event include the existence of a wandering commentator who goes through the different spaces and commenting on what is going on, a journalist's job, writer and theater critic Tito Lívio, Portuguese sign language translation, as well as allowing access for people with reduced mobility to all spaces of Palavras Andarilhas.
Jorge Serafim and Tito Lívio join a group of storytellers and speakers composed by 36 guests from Portugal, and many others from Brazil, Spain, Uruguay, Mexico, Italy.
Organized from 1998, biennially since 2002, the initiative ended up being interrupted in 2018 with the pandemic and this year the program proposes: fairy tales nights, sunset, endless tales, conferences on the future of the word, oral narration and rurality and children and reading, also having activities for parents and children.
Booksellers' Fair, the Mercadinho Andarilho offer proposals for reading and purchasing “magic objects” to take home and the Canteiros dedicated to local cultural associations, where they showed their activities, are ready to receive the curiosity of the youngest.
In the presentation of the event Paula Santos, library director, justified that “the peak are the storytelling nights that have storytellers from all over the world, in what is one of the biggest cultural initiatives that Beja has throughout the year”, concluded.
Always with humor as company, Jorge Serafim paid homage to the library because “it is my mother house. If I hadn't been here, I was not what I am today, adding that these Wandering Words “will question everything and see if people, in particular the younger ones, if they are prepared for listening and conversations”, finished.
“After the pandemic, we are waiting for how people will react”, I begin by saying the mayor of Beja, who stated that “we believe that the strength and power of the word will always be greater than any machine, concluded Paulo Arsenio.
Access to all activities taking place in Jardim Público de Beja is free and free, only paying registration for the workshops to be held on Saturday and Sunday.
Teixeira Correia
(journalist)
