Kosmopolis
The Amplified Literature Fest
Kosmopolis is a biennial literary event, born in 2002 and held at the Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona.
Journey to Mars: First Stop
Talk and screening
Over a period of three months, five groups of men and women creators, activists, thinkers, and young people who have migrated unaccompanied have formed the crew of a metaphorical mission to Mars in order to reflect upon the experience of the journey itself and the future we have in common. ...
Launch of ‘CARN DE CAP IV’
Borja Bagunyà, Míriam Cano, Júlia Francino, Roser Cabré-Verdiell, and Ariana Atala
The sea, ocean, and transatlantic voyages are so frequently encountered in literature that they could be said to constitute a genre in and of themselves. For the latest issue of Carn de Cap, we have invited some of our most cherished authors to answer that question, and their ...
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.
Anna Ferrer, Clara Fiol, Niño de Elche, Nil Ciuró and Mireia Calafell
With Eyes of Salt: Poetry and Music in Three Movements
The voices of several Catalan poets will meet to offer three acts, three movements, three independent seas which, coming together, offer a voyage by boat to the verses that have been able to bring the sea to a poetry book.
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.
Louqsor/Andromède: The Written Images of Aurora Bertrana
FRAU. recerques visuals and Tramoia
This installation is a sensorial journey that takes the viewer travelling with Aurora Bertrana aboard the vessels Louqsor and Andromède at the end of the 1920s. Rereading Aurora Bertrana from the standpoint of contemporary art.
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 ...
Enrique Vila-Matas, Rodrigo Fresán, and Anna María Iglesia
Moby-Pim
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville and The Woman of Porto Prim by Antonio Tabucchi are the ports and departure points from which Enrique Vila-Matas and Rodrigo Fresán will enter, by boat or on islands, the ellipses and anchorless points of the oceanic univ ...
Silvia Ferrara and Javier Velaza
The History of the World in Nine Scripts
Writing, which developed independently in different contexts and in different epochs, represents a turning point in the dynamics of human communication. Silvia Ferrara, a specialist in the history of writing and author of The Great Invention: A History of the World in Nine Mysterious Scripts&nb...
Ebbaba Hameida, Nicolás Castellano and Xavier Aldekoa
Stories Whispered in the Ear
In the occasion of the launch of Number 8 of the collection «Voces 5W», Ebbaba Hameida and Nicolás Castellano give their views on how to whisper stories against the sound of bombs but without resorting to the mystique of war. At the centre of their stories there are ...
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.
Jarvis Cocker and Guillem Gisbert
Writing; Transforming the World
Jarvis Cocker,an icon of pop music and frontman of the band Pulp, reveals his more intimate side as it appears in his memoirs. Accompanied by Guillem Gisbert, one of the most important figures in the Catalan music scene, they talk of the literature and the music that is part of what makes up ...
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”, ...
ruido ê (the film)
Silvia Zayas, Michel André and Claudio Barría
The film is the condensation of a collective artistic research-production project in which the film element works as an excuse for weaving working networks with scientists, divers, and artists around questions of perception, vulnerability, and resistance. After the projection of the film, ...
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.
Isabel Ferrera, Ai Futaki and Cristina Romera
Pioneering Women of the Depths
Our relationship with the ocean is closer than we believe it is. The ocean feeds us, absorbs excess greenhouse gases and heat, and captures carbon. It is also a perennial source of artistic inspiration. The oceanographer Cristina Romera speaks two pioneering women who have gone deep into ...
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 ...
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.
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.
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.
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 ...
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 ...
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.
Colm Tóibín and Jordi Puntí
The Secret Life of Writers
The Irish writer Colm Tóibín, who has just published The Magician, speaks with the writer Jordi Puntí about the power of fiction when offering insights into the lives of great creators.
The Voynich Manuscript
A Centuries-Old Enigma
The Voynich manuscript has been a mystery since it first appeared in the early fifteenth century. A mixture of naturalist treatise, hermetic text, and cryptic repertoire of signs, no one has yet been able to ascertain the author, contents, or aims of the work. In this session moderated by Elisa ...
Concert by Nico Roig, with Lucia Fumero and David Soler
Martian Heart
The singer and composer Nico Roig re-creates, live, the music he has composed for the exhibition Mars: The Red Mirror and embarks on a sound journey that moves through history from the metamorphoses of the planet to the strange Martian landscapes captured by recent space missions. ...
Verónica Gerber Bicecci and the language to come
Iván de la Nuez
Creator Verónica Gerber Bicecci composes a theory about the language of the future that emanates from the intersection between literature and art.
Verónica Gerber Bicecci and Alicia Kopf
The Dance of Renewal
Recently there has been a proliferation of bridging texts imbibing from the best that fiction and artistic practice have to offer in order to explore new territories and enrich fiction with the plastic arts. These are books that tend to take shape in drawing, photography, videos, and painting, ...
Werner Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer
Messengers from Space
The film director Werner Herzog speaks with the volcanologist Clive Oppenheimer about the third documentary they have made together, Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds, an inquiry into the cultural significance of meteorites, the impact their craters have had on humanity, and everything science has been able to learn about them.
Aina Huguet, Iris Llop, Artur Garcia Fuster, Gemma Medina and Martí Sales
Ray Bradbury: A Critical Reading
A story, an actress, and three critics: Aina Huguet reads Ray Bradbury’s The Veldt (La sabana), and Iris Llop, Artur Garcia, and Gemma Medina (from the online magazine of literary criticism, La Lectora) squeeze the text from three different angles in order to extract as much juice from it as possible.
Robert Macfarlane and Gabi Martínez
The Story of the Fire and the Ice
Robert Macfarlane, a world reference of nature writing, speaks with Gabi Martínez, promotor of the idea of Liternatura, on how to construct a new story about nature, one that draws attention to the importance of looking after marginal spaces and biodiversity when faced with the greyness of the Anthropocene.
Presentation of the special number of ‘BRANCA’ magazine
The Rockets Came Like Locusts
Presentation of the collection of short stories Els coets venien com llagostes, fruit of a joint project of BRANCA magazine and the CCCB, and that starts out from the wish to think about futures with the excuse of a hypothetical colonisation of Mars.
Martian Series: More Fiction Than Science?
Live recording of the iCatFM programme ‘SerieSelektor’
The podcast of the iCat series comes to Kosmopolis to analyse and recommend several series that explore the red planet. In such series, Mars has become one of the obsessions of present-day sci-fi, but how much fiction and how much reality is there? How and when will man arrive on Mars?
Sophie Collins, Irenosen Okojie, Mireia Calafell and Anna Gual
Poetising the Tomorrow
What words do we need for thinking about the future? Are the concepts and ideas of the past of any use or must we create new ones to name another possible world? Where will we find these words that have not yet been spoken? Poetic and audiovisual recital where Sophie Collins and Irenosen Okojie read their texts by videoconference, accompanied from the CCCB by the poets Mireia Calafell and Anna Gual who leads the session.
Verónica Gerber Bicecci, Giovanna Rivero, Fernanda Trías, and Jorge Carrión
Future America
What future horizons are being drawn by Latin American literature today? What is it like, this most recent speculative fiction from the other shores of the Atlantic? What interventions does it propose in the domains of realism, experimental literature, and contemporary art? With very different origins and biographies, the writers Verónica Gerber Bicecci, Fernanda Trías, and Giovanna Rivero speak, in this conversation with the writer Jorge Carrión, about their work and that of other contemporary writers of the continent.
Poetry Slam: Kosmopolis special edition
Ten slammers will participate in this poetic competition, always in an agile, dynamic form establishing new relations between public and poets, in a special version thematically linked with the exhibitions “Mars: The Red Mirror” and “Science Friction”. As always, the ...
Elisenda Solsona, Elena Bartomeu, Cristina Xifra, Elena Polanco & Ricard Ruiz Garzón
Extraordinary
Four writers discuss with the editor of the first women’s anthology of Catalan science-fiction about what this irruption means, the new voices, forms, and themes by which it is sustained and, above all, why it has taken so long to appear, and what future awaits it in our literary world.
Mia Couto, José Eduardo Agualusa and Tania Adam
Translators of Dreams
Although they were born half a continent apart, the Mozambican Mia Couto and the Angolan José Eduardo Agualusa are good friends as well as being two of the most respected figures of African literature. They are united by a linguistic homeland—Portuguese—and a similar conception ...
Presentation of the magazine ‘CARN DE CAP TRES’
Posthuman Landscapes
The literary magazine CARN DE CAP, promoted by the Escola Bloom, presents its third issue, a landscape to Posthumanism, as a space for going beyond the aesthetic, political, and philosophical coordinates of humanism.
Sebastià Portell, Joaquín Rodríguez, and Angelina Cabré
Reading, between Pleasure and Need
In an event organized by the Libraries of Barcelona and moderated by Angelina Cabré, Sebastià Portell and Joaquín Rodríguez, two authors of different but complementary standpoints on reading, speak about their most recent books on the occasion of Kosmopolis 2021.
Lana Bastašić, Tatiana Țîbuleac, and Xènia Dyakonova
Writing in Turbulence
In Kosmopolis, Lana Bastašić and Tatiana Țîbuleac, two women among Europe’s writers of most potential, share the stage for the first time to speak about literature, language as activism and turbulences, because their books are shocking, full of extreme characters and dysfunctional relationships.
Pau Riba, Neil Harbisson, Pol Lombarte, Núria Martínez-Vernis, Oriol Sauleda & De Mortimers
On Big Bangs, Cyborgs, and Poetry
The poets Núria Martinez-Vernis and Oriol Sauleda recite fragments from the book that Riba has written for the occasion, after his talk with with Pol Lombarte and Neil Harbisson, the first person to be legally recognised as a cyborg. To conclude, and together with the group De ...
Martian Waves. Science, literature, and live radio
Recording of a live podcast
Closing festivities of the "ALIA Mission", an educational project relating popularisation of science with literary and artistic creation, with the conversation of the astrophysicist Fatoumata Kébé with Miquel Sureda, and the recording of a live podcast with the schools and scientists involved.
Kameron Hurley and Víctor García Tur
Feminism in the Age of Geeks
The standpoint of gender has changed science fiction and Kameron Hurley is overturning paradigms and enriching the genre in many directions.She speaks with Víctor García Tur, winner of the Sant Jordi Prize with his L’aigua que vols (The Water You Want ...
Oriol Sauleda, Marcel·lí Bayer and Alexandra Garzón
The Only Thing I Need Is to Imagine
Accompanied by the musician Marcel·lí Bayer and the video creator Alexandra Garzón, Oriol Sauleda takes us on a trip through the cosmos with words alone. Fasten your seatbelts and prepare for a recital with an ascending lexicon and constellations of metaphors. A unique ...
Maggie O’Farrell, Gemma Ruiz Palà, and Begoña Gómez Urzaiz
Forget about Shakespeare
In this session, Maggie O’Farrell, one of the United Kingdom’s most acclaimed writers, speaks with Gemma Ruiz Palà and Begoña Gómez Urzaiz about her immersion in Elizabethan theatre, the misogyny of biographers, and her discovery of the world of natural knowledge to the point of becoming a veritable healer.
Isaki Lacuesta, Pedro G. Romero, and LaboratoriA
Mute Portraits
Isaki Lacuesta has once again amplified flamenco with Retratos mudos, a performance-screening of a series of soundless films of great flamenco artists, accompanied by live music from the LaboratoriA group and a conversation with the artist Pedro G. Romero.
Claudia Durastanti and Stefanie Kremser
Being from Everywhere or Nowhere
These two nomad writers talk about identities that are constructed on the basis of passport stamps and refer to their most recent books, L’estrangera (The Stranger – L’Altra Editorial / Anagrama) and Si aquest carrer fos meu (If This Street Were Mine – Edicions de 1984 / Entreambos), to discuss uprootedness, the sense of belonging, and the strategies they have adopted to find their place in the world.
Fatoumata Kébé and Albert Forns
The Moon Is a Novel
With L’altra cara de la Lluna (Once Upon a Moon: History, Myths and Legends – Angle Editorial/Blackie Books), Fatoumata Kébét pays tribute to our satellite, offering a cultural history of the Moon that reads like a gripping novel. This brilliant French astrophysicist talks with the writer and journalist Albert Forns, ranging from the myths and legends that different civilisations have devoted to the queen of the night through to the space race and the influence the Moon has had in films, songs, and even the expressions we use. ...
Hervé Le Tellier and Pablo Martín Sánchez
Parallel Universes
Speculation is the departure point for many great stories. Ever since the Iliad, starting from a hypothetical “and if…” and exploring parallel universes, possible futures, and uchronian pasts, have allowed us to test the contradictions of our world. In today’s ...
Dani Orviz and Crisal Rodríguez
Poetry Slam
The poetry slammers Dani Orviz and Crisal Rodríguez recite two creations inspired by the great themes of this Kosmopolis, namely our interplanetary future and coexistence among companion species.
Deep Blue Rhapsody wins the 19th Lletra Prize
Kosmopolis
“Deep Blue Rhapsody” has been selected as the winner of the 19th Lletra Prize for the best digital initiative to promote Catalan literature, organised by the Prudenci Bertrana Foundation and the Open University of Catalonia’s Lletre Project. The project was presented at ...
Books and Places for a Literary Summer
Kosmopolis
Eternal cities, the centre of the world, a mysterious lake, the red planet, wonderland or the closest place possible… What book would you pack if you had to choose? This is the question we asked the CCCB team. And these are these are the results – their suggestions for a literary summer...
Han Kang and Jorge Carrión
Fiction as a Scalpel
With The Vegetarian, winner of the Man Booker prize, Han Kang has become the most prominent female Korean writer. The novel discusses insubordination, misogynist violence, contemporary art, food and humans’ relationship with the plant world, amongst other important questions ...
Ian Watson and Laura Huerga
Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin
The science-fiction writher Ian Watson and the publisher Laura Huerga talk about the film Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin by Arwen Curry (EE.UU, 2018, 68'), a documentary which offers a journey through the worlds, both the real and the fictional, of Ursula K. Le Guin, best known for her ...
Lisa Randall
How Physics Scales the Universe
Quantum theories help us to understand a reality that is hidden from our senses, but which affects our daily lives more than we can imagine. Lisa Randall is one of the most important female scientists of our time, author of seminal works that have contributed to our understanding of the universe ...
Helen Hester and Nick Srnicek
After Work: What Is Left?
There is a certain tension when reflecting on the post-work era. With automatization of the most repetitive tasks, jobs traditionally associated with men are rejected, whilst stereotypically female jobs flourish. At the same time, the automatization of the world may lead to a situation in which ...
María José Llergo
Volver
We’re celebrating the end of K19 with a concert by María José Llergo, one of the most prominent voices in contemporary flamenco and a singer with a particular affinity for lyrics that shine a light on social struggles. Llergo sings about love, sadness and incomprehension ...
Natza Farré
Sexism in the Headlines
on La competència (The Competition) and author of Curs de feminisme per a microones (A course in feminism for microwaves) (2018)– carries out a critical reading of various headlines. A session that looks at narratives in journalism, helping ...
Paula Bonet
The Pregnant Body Without a Foetus
The story of the feminist revolution bravely shows the taboos that women have faced. The art of Paula Bonet is a clear example when it comes to focusing on the dramatic experiences of women, previously silenced by heteropatriarchal culture. Bonet’s literature, as well as exposing and ...
María José Llergo
Canción de Soldados
We’re celebrating the end of K19 with a concert by María José Llergo, one of the most prominent voices in contemporary flamenco and a singer with a particular affinity for lyrics that shine a light on social struggles. Llergo sings about love, sadness and incomprehension ...
Susan Orlean and Bel Olid
We speak to Susan Orlean, one of the leading lights in modern American cultural journalism, who has written for The New Yorker magazine since 1987, after working at Rolling Stone, Spy, Esquire and Vogue. Orlean ...
Talking About Books: From Literary Criticism to Podcasts, Booktubers and Book Clubs
Marina Porras, Marc Rovira, Marta Botet Borràs, Ricard Ruiz Garzón, Marc Pastor y Albert Forns
In this talk, we introducd some of the spaces where we can talk about books, from literary criticism magazines to reading clubs, organised by Catalan libraries with very good attendance, through to new spaces for discussion on the Internet
Laura Huerga, Llucia Ramis and Luna Miguel
Why Women will Save the Planet
Up until now, women’s problems were not seen as relevant when discussing climate change. It wasn’t until the voices of the ecofeminists gained strength that we have begun to recognise the indisputable intersection between gender equality and the move towards decarbonised societies. ...
Juan Antonio Bayona and Àngel Sala
Tales of High Fantasy
The characters and creatures created as part of the grand tradition of fantasy literature have offered a constant source of inspiration for the great filmmakers who have tackled this genre. J. A. Bayona, currently one of the most relevant names in fantasy film, speaks with Àngel Sala, ...
Jordi Costa and Vicente Molina Foix
Kubrick’s Labyrinth
Stanley Kubrick’s film oeuvre appears to be timeless, opening itself up to new viewers as though enigmatic architecture built on uncountable layers of sense waiting to be deciphered. The writer Vicente Molina Foix, who collaborated with the filmmaker in the Spanish dubbing of his films ...
Víctor Sala, Joan Burdeus and Sonia Fernández-Vidal
Why Are Scriptwriters Obsessed with Physics?
Is it a coincidence that Walter White’s alter ego in Breaking Bad is called Heisenberg? Can you write a happy ending after the Uncertainty Principle? Scriptwriters should not ignore science when writing, as some of the most passionate stories to be serialised for TV are those that have dug deep into quantum physics.
Creative Artificial Intelligences
Anna Giralt Gris, Carme Torras, Lali Barrière and Carles Sora
At a moment when artificial intelligence has made a major leap in its creative applications, we wish to create a space for debate as to the nature of automated artistic creation. We share a stage with scientists and artists who are experts in artificial intelligence, philosophy, literature ...
Paul Mason
The Red Star and the Green Planet
In Red Star (1908) by Alexandr Bogdanov, a communist society on Mars observes the Earth. On realising that the human species has been incapable of overthrowing capitalism, they propose its destruction. More than a century after its publication, Paul Mason poses the question anew: ...
Blixa Bargeld and the meaning of letter K
Solo Vocal Performance
The unexpected preamble by Blixa Bargeld at the tenth edition of Kosmopolis. The German artist offers us a short dissertation on the meaning of the letter K in the Egyptian alphabet, identifies the element corresponding to it on Mendeleiev’s periodic table, and the specific usefulness ...
Blixa Bargeld
Solo Vocal Performance
What is voice? Is it distinct from music? And what about sound? Blixa Bargeld, vocalist with Einstürzende Neubauten and a pioneer of industrial music, offers us a performance in which their boundaries metamorphosize, in one of the German artist’s most poetic and ironic facets. A performance in which the famous performer shows that his voice is able to produce almost impossible sounds, whilst at the same time including scientific, poetic and philosophical games with his characteristic elegance. ...
Challenging Complexity: How Publications Change What it Means to be a Digital Library
Caylin Smith (British Library)
The nature of narration is changing through the possibilities offered by digital technologies. Libraries are just beginning to understand this, and a new dimension has opened up in which to store these digital publications, much more complex than those of previous times. The definition of a ...
Rasha Abbas, Hamid Sulaiman, Golan Haji and Bashkim Shehu
Stories from Exile
What’s it like to write from exile? Can fiction describe a situation as complicated as a civil war with more nuances? The Syrian writers Rasha Abbas, Hamid Sulaiman and Golan Haji talk to us about their experience as authors who have been forced to leave behind their country and find refuge in another in order to create their work.
The Audible Decade: The Impact of Voice Assistants, Podcasts and Audiobooks in the World of Books in the Next 10 Years
Javier Celaya
Voice is replacing the keyboard. According to predictions from ComScore for 2020, 50% of all searches will be done by voice. Cultural content such as music and books have the highest number of voice searches on the Internet (around 43%). As well as following voice commands to play music, answer ...
Vicenç Villatoro and Sam Abrams
The Logic of Locus
Literary fiction – and non-fiction! – is almost always rooted in a physical place, be it real or imaginary. Literature is written from a place. And literary stories have a setting or invent one for the action to take place in. Is the place from which stories are written and their ...
The Stories that Move the Slam
Fourth edition of Gran Slam Barcelona
Poetry Slam with Marta B., Adriana Bertrán, Comikk MG, Dive Dibosso, Rakaya Fetuga, Margalida Followthelida, Lisette Ma Neza, Diego Mattarucco, Dani Orviz and Saiban. The greatest international exponents of Poetry Slam come together in this edition of the festival, whose underlying thread ...
Daniel Cassany
Eulogy for the Critical (and Useless) Reading of Stories
Daniel Cassany is the author of books that offer a wide ranging and interdisciplinary analysis of the processes connected with writing and reading. The author speaks to Juan Carlos Calvo, Director of Barcelona’s Camp de l’Arpa – Caterina Albert Library, about the actions, ...
Android Love
With Libby Heaney, Joana Moll and Núria Gómez Gabriel
Of all the spheres of romantic connection, the tecnologichal is currently the most controversial. In online dating, love is a distance literary meeting, while intimacy is a negotiation of digital systems that connect people. Applications like Tinder displace romantic relationships in a utilitarian ...
Eva Baltasar, Marta Orriols, Tina Vallès and Laura Pinyol
First Successful Novels
The writers Eva Baltasar (Permafrost, 2018), Marta Orriols (Aprendre a parlar amb les plantes [Learning to talk to plants], 2018), Tina Vallès (La memòria de l’arbre [The memory of the tree], 2017) and Laura Pinyol (El risc més gran [The greatest risk], 2018) talk about th...
Simon Roy, Rodrigo Fresán and Laura Fernández
The Stories that Move Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was undoubtedly one of the greatest storytellers with a camera in history. Every single one of his films were based on books, be they literary classics or bestsellers. And no genre was left behind when it came to adapting works in his own way: war and ultraviolence, supernatural ...
Adapters
Coral Cruz, David Trueba, Alberto Marini and Mònica García
In the frame of “Is the Novel Always Better?”, Professional session on literary adaptations. We have a debate with leading adapters. When you adapt a work of literature, it might seem like you’re starting off with part of the work already done, but the truth is that bringing ...
Adapted
Víctor Santos, Anna Soler-Pont, Lolita Bosch and Víctor Sala
In the frame of “Is the Novel Always Better?”, Professional session on literary adaptations. Often when discussing film adaptations of a novel or a comic, only those who have created the adaptation take part: scriptwriters or directors who have taken a pre-existing work and made ...
I want to adapt this film or comic; what should I do?
Ignacio Monter
In the frame of “Is the Novel Always Better?”, Professional session on literary adaptations. During the creative process, legal questions often arise that can get in the way. In this practical session, the lawyer for Guionistes Associats de Catalunya (Associated Scriptwriters of ...
Doubles Vies (Non-Fiction)
Talk with Marcel Ventura, Jordi Panyella and Bernat Ruiz Domènech
Talk with Marcel Ventura, Jordi Panyella (Pol·len Edicions) and Bernat Ruiz Domènech about the film Doubles Vies (Non-Fiction) by Olivier Assayas (France, 2018, 107'), a portrait of current times in publishing, in which analogue comes up against the new digital formats.
Mona Eltahawy and Najat El Hachmi
Genuine Freedom
The daughters of Muslim families in Europe must face different challenges to defend their individual freedoms and their emancipation as women. On the one hand, the patriarchal traditions that come from their country of origin, intimately linked with religion. On the other, the onslaughts of ...
Nuccio Ordine
Eulogy for the Critical (and Useless) Reading of Stories
Nuccio Ordine is professor of Italian literature and author various books that defend the value of humanistic knowledge. The author speaks to Olga Cuadrado, director of the Three Cultures Foundation’s Fátima Mernissi Library in Seville, and Julián Figueres, director of Barcelona’s ...
Philip Ball and José Ignacio Latorre
Keys Aspects and Dilemmas of the Quantum Story
Despite this science still being in its infancy, humans are able to understand and manipulate material at the subatomic level and probe the origins and development of the universe. Scientific development provides the basis for introducing a new disruptive technology: quantum computing. The ...
1rst Schools’ Poetry Slam Championship
Competition between 400 young people aged between 12 and 16
Some 400 young people aged between 12 and 16 from four different schools take part in this new championship, in which voice, poetry and performance are the only means of achieving the title of best rhapsode. The 1st Schools’ Poetry Slam Championship is the culmination of three months of work by students from four high schools in the city (Institut Montserrat, Institut Barres i Ones, Institut Valldaura and Institut Miquel Tarradell) and local poets from the Poetry Slam Barcelona network. ...
Debat a bat (Wide Open Debate), Encouraging Dialogue with Young People Through Illustrated Albums
Mon Mas, Beatriz Martin Vidal i Martha Escudero
Debat a bat is a project created to enable educational work with young people between the ages of twelve and sixteen through illustrated albums. A universe in which art, literature and philosophy go hand in hand through images. The albums are the catalyst for dialogue and the ...
Agustín Fernández Mallo, Amelia Gamoneda and Gustavo Schwartz
Metaphor: The Old and New Story that Creates the World
Just as metaphors have been necessary for building social, communicative and even anthropological systems, they have also helped to create scientific thought and language. Agustín Fernández Mallo, Amelia Gamoneda and Gustavo Schwartz explore the metaphorical and analogical mechanisms ...
The ‘Bit’ Generation: Writing for New Formats
Beatriz Liebe, Daniel Calabuig, Blanca Bardagil, Ana Alonso, Oriol Ripoll and Marisol López
How do you write a play for robots? And what about writing for a podcast or a videogame? How can you play with a book without losing the textual essence? Can you tell a story on Instagram? In this round table we aim to analyse the extent to which the physical format conditions the story, by presenting several innovative cases of local productions.
Jocelyn Pook Ensemble
Women's Magazine Tango
The beautiful and hypnotic music of the Jocelyn Pook Ensemble is the ideal soundtrack for the K19 inaugural session. The group, led by the well-known British composer and violinist who gives it its name, mixes styles and music while fusing string instruments and singing to create mysterious ...
Richard Sennett and Carles Muro
Narratives of the Homo Faber
In this conversation, Richard Sennett addressed different aspects of cities, urbanism and inequalities. He analysed the impact of global capitalism on the homogenisation of cities and new technologies as one more way of standardising life. He also talked about coexistence and the relationship ...
Gonçalo M. Tavares and Enrique Vila-Matas
Explorers Among Ruins
Gonçalo M. Tavares and Enrique Vila-Matas are two big names in modern literature with radically different aesthetics and literary offerings but who, from different perspectives, trace the course of time’s disappearance and dissolution. If post-modernity has led stories to break ...
The Bad Pupil
Taller Estampa
Through artistic practice, the Taller Estampa reflects on the discourse around artificial intelligence.
The Particles That Make the World Go Round
Eva Rexach
At the upcoming Kosmopolis 19 we’ll talk about quantum physics and all the cultural, political and ethical implications of this science. To set the scene, we offer a timeline from the birth of quantum mechanics through to its presence in different areas of our daily lives, as well as ...
Helen Hester: «Biology is not destiny, it can be technologically transformed»
Toni Navarro
A conversation with philosopher Helen Hester about xenofeminism, a gender technomaterialist proposal that aims to offer tools for a collectively construction of a new post-capitalist world.
Seven Gems to Discover at K19
Eva Rexach
We propose a little journey into the future to take a glimpse of the upcoming Kosmopolis 2019. You’ll see a selection of what promise to be the main highlights of the festival, with events of all types: talks, films, concerts, performances, theatre… We want to start by giving you ...
Rachel Cantor and Joan Miquel Oliver
Imperfect Futures
Rachel Cantor, an American writer in residence at the Jiwar Association in Barcelona, and Joan Miquel Oliver, singer, composer and writer, talk with Andreu Gomila about dystopia as narrative material. Both authors have used this resource in the settings for their fictional works, Joan Miquel ...
Hanif Kureishi Answers the Proust Questionnaire
Taking advantage of the visit as part of the Kosmopolis continuous programme by Hanif Kureishi, author of books such as The Buddha of Suburbia and Something to Tell You, and screenwriter for films such as Sammy and Rosie Get Laid and My Beautiful Laundrette, we put to h...
Hanif Kureishi
A Conversation with Alicia Kopf
The British writer Hanif Kureishi, author of books such as The Buddha of Suburbia and Something to Tell You, and screenwriter for films such as Sammy and Rosie Get Laid and My Beautiful Laundrette, talks with Alicia Kopf about his literary career and his novel The Nothing.
The pleasure of reading: selected publications for a good summer
Kosmopolis
With summer come the holidays – that time of year when we get to disconnect from our daily routine and, among other things, enjoy the pleasure of reading. You might have already decided on your summer reading list, but if not, here at Kosmopolis we’ve put together a list for you ...
Peter Kuper
Presentation of the “Viatges dibuixats” issue of Altaïr Magazine
Kosmopolis hosts a dual activity to tackle the graphic fiction genre. Evening session: presentation of the special “Viatges dibuixats” (Drawn Journeys) issue of Altaïr Magazine and meeting with American author Peter Kuper, Eisner prize-winner and ...
Jorge Carrión and Sagar
Workshop on producing travel chronicles
Kosmopolis hosts a dual activity to tackle the graphic fiction genre. Morning session: workshop on the conceptualisation, production, development and publication of non-fictional comics, with two prominent Spanish representatives of the genre: writer Jorge Carrión and artist Sagar.
Orhan Pamuk
Orhan Pamuk is a leading author due to his approach to the differences between Western and Eastern culture. His work shows us the essence of a country that has forged its identity while combining tradition and modernity. During the Kosmopolis Continuous Programme 2018, Pamuk presented the novel The ...
Narrative immersion: the next challenge
Mireia Manjón
Increasingly more narrative formats are opting for immersion. At Kosmopolis 2017 we explored this tendency, which puts people’s experience at the centre of the experience and grants us decision-making power. The three Alpha Channel chats that we are offering investigated ...
Narratives for Readers of the 21st Century
Mireia Manjón
At a time of profound changes, at Kosmopolis we wonder about the future of books and of the publishing industry. What will the tales of the new decade marked by artificial intelligence be like? The three Bookcamp discussions that we propose to you explore the commitment to narrative experiences.
Colson Whitehead Answers the Proust Questionnaire
Taking advantage of the visit as part of the Kosmopolis continuous programme by Colson Whitehead, author of The Underground Railroad (National Book Award 2016 and Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2017), we put to him the Proust Questionnaire in order to find out some aspects and interesting curiosities of his personality.
Colson Whitehead
A talk with the author of “The Underground Railroad: A Novel”
The writer Llucia Ramis talks with New York writer Colson Whitehead, author of six novels and several non-fiction works, who made his debut in 1999 with The Intuitionist and presents his book The Underground Railroad: A Novel (2016). The Underground Railroad narrates the escape of a slave girl from a plantation and her journey through different states in the south of the United States on board an allegorical train that refers to the clandestine network that helped slaves escape during the 19th century. ...
Translation Slam
Live battle of translations
To celebrate International Translation Day 2017 CCCB presents a live battle between two translators who defend two different versions in Catalan of a single text. The translation in question is that of the first pages of Nikhterinó Deltio, an untranslated detective novel ...
Literary Dialogues at Kosmopolis
Eva Rexach
Jean Echenoz and Jean-Yves Jouannais. John Banville and Pierre Lemaitre. Werner Herzog and Paul Holdengräber. The K Dialogues for the 2017 edition of Kosmopolis played host to authors with similar track records which enabled us to zoom in closer on their work, discover some of their secrets ...
Kosmopolis books for this summer
Kosmopolis
Now’s the moment to decide which book or books will accompany us over the course of the summer, which stories are ideal for taking to the beach or which classic it’s time to take up for those evenings al fresco. The books we recommend below are all by authors that at some point ...
The female constelations at K17
Eva Rexach
Subversive mothers, repentant mothers, grieving mothers and free mothers. Women who celebrate their old age, who write from experience and imagination. We are going to dedicate part of the programming of Kosmopolis to the Female constelations.
Karl Ove Knausgård Answers the Proust Questionnaire
Taking advantage of the visit as part of the Kosmopolis continuous programme by Karl Ove Knausgård, one of the most relevant voices in contemporary literature today and considered by some critics as the 21st-century Proust, we put to him the famous French author's questionnaire.
Karl Ove Knausgård
A conversation with Antonio Lozano
Conversation with the Norwegian writer, author of My Struggle, about his literary work. Karl Ove Knausgård (Oslo, 1968) made his publishing debut in 1998 with Ute av verden (Out of the World), a novel highly acclaimed by critics and readers that earned ...
Discovering the North
Special session on Canadian literature
This sample will offer us a first-hand acquaintance with the broad range of voices that form the country’s literary scene. It presents four literary figures with highly diverse origins, works and professional careers, ranging from the established and consolidated author to the new young ...
Seven sessions on climate change in K17
Eva Rexach
Climate change is already a reality and many are the symptoms that show it, from the emergence of vegetation in Antarctica to the alterations in the planet temperatures. Kosmopolis we wanted to reflect on this and we offered several talks about climate change, because facing climate change ...
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Africa, Writing and Emancipation
In recent centuries western states have taken over as the world centre of cultural power. The renowned Kenyan writer and academic Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o suggests that this centralised influence should be devolved to the different cultural spheres around the planet. Moreover, he ...
Teju Cole and Enrique Vila-Matas
The Errant Novel
Enrique Vila-matas and Teju Cole talki with Jordi Nopca about their latest novels Mac y su contratiempo (Seix Barral) and Cada día es del ladrón (Acantilado) and reflect on the genesis of a work that finds its reference elements far from the most immediate linguistic tradition and that proposes, at the same time, writing as a reflection on itself.
Thank You
Kosmopolis
Thank you for attending the conferences, for participating in the workshops, for making louder the literature with your voice (in person and in the networks).
Daniel Tammet and Màrius Serra
Change in an Extraordinary Mind
A conversation-game between writer and savant communicator Daniel Tammet and wordplay specialist Màrius Serra. Daniel Tammet is capable of learning any language in a week and can recite the decimals of the mathematical constant Pi for five hours, but his true gift ...
Frédéric Pajak and Jorge Carrión
Anatomy of Conflicts and of the Memory
Following the presentation of Pajak works, the author and Jorge Carrión talk about the narrative and philosophical conflicts raised in his books and about how he has tackled the representation of major European traumatic events and warring conflicts in them. To what point is graphic ...
Kosmopolis 17. Female Characters and (Im)possible Worlds
Colloquium between Kirsty Logan, Sophie Divry and Marina Espasa
Marina Espasa, writer and literary critic, and since 2016, director of the UNESCO Barcelona City of Literature Office, conducts a conversation between two writers, Kirsty Logan from Scotland and Sophie Divry from France, on writing, feminisms, female characters, readers, and possible and impossible worlds.
Zeina Abirached and Paco Roca
Fertile Hybridisations of Reality and Fiction
Following the presentations of their respective works, the authors converse about who in their projects they take as a starting point real experiences or situations to construct, based on them, universal tales and stories, through visual designs that grow and become complex along with the stories that they aim to narrate.
Jo Nesbø, Marc Pastor and Serielizados
Harry Hole, Occupied and Other Nordic Stories
Before becoming a writer Jo Nesbø was a footballer, had an industrial rock band and earned a living as a financial analyst. He was commissioned to write a book about his life on tour with the band Di Derre and when he started to type he heard the echoing words of Aksel Sandemose: the ...
Kosmopolis 17. Kingdom
Performance by Agrupación Señor Serrano
The causes of global warning are everywhere and they are largely associated with human activity. Climate change is the principal consequence. Global change of biblical proportions is occurring; we’ve created a monster, and there’s no stopping it.
Kosmopolis 17. NaNoWriMo: Socialisation of the Processes of Writing and Reading
Round table with Albert Altimira, Víktor Valles, Meritxell Terrón. Moderator: Mariana Eguara
Just as reading marathons exist, so do writing marathons: a new method is NaNoWriMo. At this round table, authors who are taking part in NaNoWriMo will explain what it consists of and what their experience is with this platform for stimulating writing.
Kosmopolis 17. From the Book to the Screen and Beyond
Round table with Ana Mar López Contreras, Jordi Solà, Carlos Coronado, Eva Domínguez and Iñaki Díaz. Moderator: Marisol López
The digital support has broken with traditionally separate formats to allow the unlimited expansion of the literary universe: video games, interactive comic books, literary apps… We present innovative home-grown cases to analyse the role of the narrative, whether that story can be told in another format, what the digital brings to paper and what is lost, what the business model is, and what public reception is like.
Kosmopolis 17. Expanding the limits of the book: transmedia experience of The Trial, by Franz Kafka
Lecture by Belén Santa-Olalla and Nieves Rosendo
The Trial, by Franz Kafka, is a theatre adaptation premiered in Malaga in November 2016. But this work goes further and expands beyond a transmedia experience that includes digital and analogical media, street actions and immersive performances in the theatre itself, that also opens ...
Kim Stanley Robinson and Ian Watson
The New Reality: Climate Fiction
‘Climate Fiction’, set in the near future, is the realistic fiction of our time, and Kim Stanley Robinson is its leading practitioner. Veteran SF author Ian Watson will discuss with Kim Stanley Robinson his career committed constructively to surveying how our human race may survive ...
Kosmopolis 17. New Voices of Europe
The first public presentation of the “New Voices of Europe”
Which are the most interesting new voices in Europe? What kind of literature are emerging writers producing? At Kosmopolis we will be getting to know the “10 New Voices of Europe” of 2017, a group of writers, poets and playwrights originating from Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, France, Iceland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Poland, Romania, Spain and Wales, selected by experts from the Literature Across Frontiers festivals, who will be revealing the new literary tendencies in Europe to us.
Javier Celaya
The Book to Come
In a world of driverless cars and trains, smart vacuum cleaners and fridges, sensors that track sleep and exercise, can we suppose that the book will continue to be the same as ever? The boom in artificial intelligence and big data augur a radical transformation in the way in which we consume all types of cultural contents. At this moment of changes and uncertainties, we will be performing an exercise in foresight and venturing to predict the future of the book.
Evelio Cabrejo
The Reading Before the Readers
Colombian psychoanalyst and linguist Evelio Cabrejo affirms that a prior reading exists to the reading of written texts. He is referring to the reading of oral texts. He also defends that this act of reading is inherent to the starting up of thinking.
Carl Safina
Can We Know What Animals Think and Feel?
Consciousness, self-awareness, empathy, non-verbal communication, imitation, teaching, grief. Many animals think and feel a lot like people do; after all, people are animals. Carl Safina shows that in some surprising ways non-human minds aren’t really too different from ours. They know ...
Kosmopolis 17. The Walk by Robert Walser
Colloquium between Esteban Feune de Colombi, Marc Caellas, Marta Sanz and Alicia Kopf
The first edition of the short novel The Walk, by Robert Walser, was published in April 1917, nearly 100 years ago. In it Walser updated the figure of the flâneur, a pensive stroller who as walks analyses the impressions that the surroundings cause him. Novelist ...
Stefano Mancuso
The Roots of the Intelligence of Plants
Plants behave in curiously intelligent ways: they fight against predators, maximise opportunities for food, and have more senses than we can imagine. How should our ideas about the plant world and its function in the fabric of life change? Italian neurobiologist Stefano Mancuso presents some ...
Orna Donath, María Llopis, Brigitte Vasallo and Bel Olid
The Family Is Dead. Long Live the Family
Access to cheap and effective contraception has been one of the driving forces of feminism: released from the obligation of reproducing women could, finally, decide what they wanted to do with their lives. However, how do those of them who have decided to have children actually live motherhood? ...
John Banville and Pierre Lemaitre
Crime novel
John Banville and Pierre Lemaitre established a dialogue on genre literature, which the two of them believe is not highly considered. “Nobody casts doubt on the fact that Simenon is a great author”, said Lemaitre, “but the crime novel continues to be regarded as a sub-genre.” ...
Kosmopolis 17. Return to the Spoken Word
Round table with Irene Fortes, Benjamín Figueres, Paulina Wardęga, Juliana Rueda. Moderator: Javier Celaya
The resurgence of podcasts, the success of WhatsApp voice messages and the possibility of talking to the machines that surround us highlight the relevance being acquired by the voice. In a world of communications where writing and audiovisual formats predominate, the voice and sound are taking ...
Kosmopolis 17. New Ways of Producing and Consuming Contents
Dan Franklin talk
In the new Internet environment of the 21st century, does copyright make any sense? How is disintermediation and self-publishing affecting the publishing industry? Is it possible to filter the enormous quantity of data? Will that of publisher be a feasible profile for developing the selection of contents? What is the role of contents curation and which are its keys? Aiming to offer an answer to al these questions will be Dan Franklin, a digital strategist who has worked at Canongate Books and Penguin Random House.
Kosmopolis 17. Crisis and Change in the Literary Ecosystem. The Voice of the Writers
Colloquium between Jean Echenoz and Sophie Divry. Moderator: Albert Lladó
Jean Echenoz and Sophie Divry are two of the most prominent novelists in French literature today. The two talk with writer and journalist Albert Lladó, about the changes that the crisis may have caused to the literary ecosystem; to the choice of themes with which to construct fiction, ...
Green Slam: International Poetry Slam Competition
Clotilde de Brito, Dani Orviz, Laura Sam, Raquel Lima, Toby Campion, Salva Soler, Simone Savogin, Crisal, Jose Luis Cabeza and Dive Dibosso
Poetry Slam Barcelona is celebrating the third edition of Grand Slam Barcelona at Kosmopolis 2017, an international oral poetry contest that welcomes the world’s leading poetry slam exponents back to the city to compete alongside regular slammers at the CCCB’s monthly championship. Three minutes, no props, no music—voice, poetry and interpretation are all the means participants have to convince the jury that their performance is the best. ...
Kosmopolis 17. Appearances / Reappearances
Dialogue between Jean Echenoz and Jean-Yves Jouannais. Moderator: Jordi Corominas
The work of Jean Echenoz and Jean-Yves Jouannais feature a series of elective affinities that go beyond the language. At some point in their career both have transited through an archaeology of disappearance in order to resuscitate men, works and remains that the present had caused to disappear. ...
Kosmopolis 17. Give Me VR and Call Me Stupid: Virtual Reality as a Generator of New Themes
Colloquium between José Luis Farias, Francisco Asensi and Flavio Escribano
Virtual reality has existed since someone thought about it, and that was a long time before Oculus or Samsung Gear. In all this time, just as Verne did in his day, imagining inventions yet to come, authors have fantasised about virtual realities in other fields such as literature, film or video ...
Kosmopolis 17. Immersion in Virtual Worlds
Lecture by Jose Valenzuela
The worlds created using virtual reality technologies induce an illusion of reality that can be really powerful, as they play with various cognitive mechanisms associated with human perception and emotion. It is relatively easy to deceive our senses and feel ourselves in another place or in ...
Kosmopolis 17. Women-Led Innovation
Round-table with: Lauren Romeo (Tekstum Solutions), Anna Ascolies (The Spanish Bookstage), Mireia Lite (Ara Llibres) and Maribel Riaza (Innovation in the book sector). Moderator: Joana Sánchez (Incipy)
Is the publishing environment a woman-friendly environment? We analyse whether projects and start-ups led by women offer added value or have a different focus to projects led by men. In general, the mission of male-led projects tends towards selling to a third party, scaling it, making it bigger ...
Sílvia Bel and Jordi Blesa Montoliu
Blind Readings
Does any female poetry exist beyond that written by women? Or is it just good or bad literature that exists? Is it necessary to continue treating women as a collective to whom visibility may be given in thematic cycles? Does a female canon exist? Or has it been imposed upon us by cultural and ideological questions? Blind Readings is a poetic game that aims to raise the visibility of gender prejudices in literature, a recital that challenges the audience to guess whether the text has been written by a man or a woman.
Hope Jahren
Be as a Tree Planted by the Waters: The Magic of Roots, Leaves, and Everything in Between
Trees are the oldest, biggest, and most successful creatures in the world. Using energy from the sun, and carbon from the air, they have thrived on land for more than four hundred million years. Hear about the amazing and unique methods that plants around us use to establish, grow, flourish, ...
Kosmopolis 17. MAPA10: Literary Cartography of Barcelona
Project presentation with Xavier Theros and Marina Espasa
The Barcelona City of Literature UNESCO Office presents the project MAPA10, a literary cartography of the city of Barcelona produced by architect Itziar González and literary critic Jordi Galves, and presented by writer Xavier Theros, winner of the Josep Pla prize for narrative and highly knowledgeable about the history and literature of the streets of Barcelona.
Lynne Segal
The Scandal of Ageing
Perhaps old women need to begin ageing scandalously, to beat back the scandals of ageing. As Professor of Psychology and Gender Studies Lynne Segal illustrates in her book Out of Time: The Pleasure & Perils of Ageing, across times and places older women, although usually devoid of ...
Timothy Morton
Change Is Changing
The ecological crisis we are facing is also a crisis of our sense of what things are. Not only are we witnessing colossal, disturbing change to parts of our world that we treated for too long as a static, neutral background; but also we are seeing how one person’s change for the worse ...
The Lumières of VR: Opportunities and Risks of Immersive Video
Carles Sora
Virtual reality appears to offer extraordinary possibilities, but only time will tell whether we are seeing the birth of a new language or a false promise.
Ways to enjoy Kosmopolis
Kosmopolis
Kosmopolis 17 is already here. You will have five days to enjoy literature, to discover new authors, new stories, new ways of narrating and reading. To think about and discuss climate change, the mixture of genres and the prejudices that still exist on literature written by women.
The McEwan Moment
Journalist Antonio Lozano interviews British writer Ian McEwan
Considered one of the finest British writers writing today and acclaimed by critics and readers alike, Ian McEwan presents his latest book Nutshell. Journalist Antonio Lozano talks with him on the occasion of the presentation of his latest work, a story of murder and deception ...
Non-human intelligence
Eva Rexach
Thinking that only humans are intelligent beings is wrong: there are other forms of intelligence that allow animals and plants to inhabit the world in different ways than we do. At Kosmopolis, we will talk about it with ecologists and experts in geobotany and animal neurobiology, and we will ...
Ian Watson presents Kim Stanley Robinson
Ian Watson, one of Britain’s leading science-fiction writers, presents Kim Stanley Robinson, one of the main exponents of climate fiction. They will be at Kosmopolis on Saturday March 25. This interview was shot last November at the Eurocon. The convention, Europe’s biggest devoted ...
New formats and great classics. Literature in pictures at Canal Alfa
Eulàlia Guarro
Historically, the artistic disciplines have mixed together, nourishing and inspiring each other. Each one having its own language, they convey the stories and contribute with their own idiosyncrasies and genuine tools. But what happens when we mix different languages and open the narrative space?
Climate change as a narrative twist
Jorge Carrión
What will the narratives of the Anthropocene be? How will we explain the world since our realisation that we have drastically changed it?
The future of reading at Bookcamp Kosmopolis
Eva Rexach
Is it possible to imagine a world without books? In an environment dominated by audiovisual media, what is the meaning of an object that has existed virtually unchanged for hundreds of years? Bookcamp Kosmopolis will be an opportunity to discuss the future of books and narratives.
The Writing and Reading of 21st Century Books
Mariana Eguaras
New forms of content creation and consumption are forcing the publishing industry to redefine its production and distribution model.
A journey through Scottish creativity with Neu! Reekie!
Eva Rexach
Beyond the clichés about men wearing kilts and villages hidden in the mist, Scotland, and Edinburgh in particular, is one of Europe’s most outstanding creative centres. And some of the most outstanding names of «Neu! Reekie!» festival will be at Kosmopolis.
The book to come
Javier Celaya
Artificial intelligence, big data, and virtual reality are set to change the book world over the next ten years.
Thinking in Strips
Jorge Carrión
Thinking in images, thinking in panels, thinking visually: human beings have always done it, but now the creative community and the editorial industry agree on the importance of developing the potential of these hybrid languages.
The Literature of Change
Eva Rexach
Science fiction literature is about apocalyptic worlds and dystopian futures in which climate change menaces the survival of the planet. But some writers, such as Kim Stanley Robinson, tell a different story. This is the literature of change.
Post-Eurocon: Authors You Need to Know
Kosmopolis
Of the many authors who passed through the Eurocon, we’ve selected the ones-not-to-miss and propose a series of short interviews in which they introduce themselves and give a short tour of their work.
Rhianna Pratchett
The Pixel Narrative
The author Rhianna Pratchett gives a British take on the way narrative models are constantly evolving in the fantasy worlds created by the booming videogame sector.
Brandon Sanderson, the Master of Cosmere
Lecture in the frame of the science fiction convention «Eurocon 2016»
Cosmere is the name of the universe which is the setting for most of Brandon Sanderson’s stories. We travel with him through the constellation of planets that make up these books which he says are inspired by Moorcock and Asimov.
Under the Skin of Albert Sánchez Piñol
Lecture in the frame of the science fiction convention «Eurocon 2016»
Cold Skin is a world-renowned work but what is under Albert Sánchez Piñol’s skin? Alicia Gilli take us through the present, past and future of one of the key figures of Catalan literature.
New Voices from Europe
Dialogue with Juana Adcock, Erika Fatland and Albert Forns
In collaboration with the platform’s members and within the context of Literary Europe Live, one of the projects in which Kosmopolis is actively participating, we will be hosting a series of dialogues and chats with emerging authors from different European countries.
An evening with Don DeLillo
Conversation between Don DeLillo and Antonio Lozano
This conversation is an exceptional opportunity to discover the work and career of Don DeLillo, one of the great English-language novelists of our time, who will be here presenting his latest novel Zero K (Seix Barral). Journalist Antonio Lozano will be talking with the author ...
The CCCB, a center commited to Literature
Eva Rexach
Barcelona is now a part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network as a City of Literature. It has been awarded this distinction thanks to the many initiatives related with the world of letters that exist in the city. The CCCB has been involved in the candidacy with projects like Kosmopolis, Slam ...
Thank you
Kosmopolis
These have been five days of high intensity where we have been joined by over 8,900 people. Five days of literary exchanges, of debates on the future of journalism, on Europe, on the legacy of W. G. Sebald and the anniversary of Alice in Wonderland. We have enjoyed the attendance by over 150 ...
Guide for following Kosmopolis wherever you may be
Eva Rexach
A festival like Kosmopolis could not call itself the “Amplified Literature Fest” if it did not offer all of its contents on all possible channels. Therefore, we have selected some activities so that you can follow them by streaming wherever you may be. In addition, our social networks ...
Five itineraries to discover Kosmopolis
Eva Rexach
Kosmopolis is a place for falling in love with literature and for letting yourself be carried away by the very varied proposals that fill all the corners of the CCCB. And it can be enjoyed in many different ways. Here we suggest a few. […]
It’s Not Just an Economic Cycle, It’s a Change of Era
Javier Celaya
Given that print book sales have dropped 40% over the last decade, do we really think that when we finally emerge from this damn crisis readers will go out and buy print books again? The fall in print book sales is not just due to the crisis. […]
Literatures for Dialogue
Eva Rexach
The K Dialogues are, for this K15, more literary than ever before. Seven chats between writers on subjects as diverse as the limits of literature, the personality of the writer, imposture, the narration of privacy or American letters. A varied menu with some of the most important names in the ...
Crimes, Politics and Music: the series of Canal+ come to Kosmopolis
Eva Rexach
From Olive Kitteridge to Game of Thrones, from Borgen to True Detective, Sunday 22nd is the series day at Kosmopolis. The best literary series explained by writers, publishers, musicians and fans. […]
150 Years Dreaming About Alice
Eva Rexach
Kosmopolis pays tribute to one of the great works of universal literature, a tale dreamed up one summer afternoon that has transcended genres and cultures and that, 150 years later, continues to be fiercely current. After the works of Shakespeare, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and ...
Alpha Channel: cinema, series and video poetry at Kosmopolis
Eulàlia Guarro
The Alpha Channel is expanding. We’ll be laying down the red carpet and rolling it out beyond the classic programming of the evenings with Alpha Nights: feature films and cinema premieres based on literary works, music, writers and journalists. And sessions all-day Sunday devoted to television ...
Writing Labs
Eva Rexach
How does a story begin? What’s the creation process? What do authors do while they are writing? The Writing Labs will let us know where literature begins. […]
The Limits of Books
Maria Farràs
Can books reach a limit? The fourth edition of the BookCamp Kosmopolis will try to answer this question through different points of view: from paper to pixel, the transition into the digital format, amplified narrative and intellectual property.
Music and Literature for Transcending the Frontiers of Europe
Eva Rexach
Vinicio Capposella, Jordi Puntí, Hoda Barakat, Abbas Khider... the authors of Translating Europe live and write in a continent where language and music serve as the connection.
Journalism, Literature and New Media
Eva Rexach
What do Jon Lee Anderson and Martin Caparrós have in common with Gay Talese and Truman Capote? Are stories better thanks to data journalism? How can literature transform contemporary facts into pieces of art? Journalism XXI will try to answer these questions.
Would you like to know wich authors will take part in K15?
Quima Farré
The full programme of the festival will be announced in mid-February 2015. Until then, here’s a preview of some of our outstanding guests: David Grossman, Rachel Kushner, Cristina Rivera Garza, Camille de Toledo, Taiye Selasi, Carles Torner and William T. Vollmann. David Grossman Considered ...
A Journey through the Memory of W. G. Sebald
Eva Rexach
Kosmopolis 2015 pays tribute to W. G. Sebald with a variety of literary activities, coinciding with «Sebald Variations» exhibition that will be inaugurated on 10 March. Memory, travel and history will be the main themes of the programme. W. G. Sebald, the writer associated with ...
The return of Kosmopolis, the Amplified Literature Festival
Kosmopolis
As 2014 draws to a close, the team of the Centre de Cultura Contemporània is hard at work preparing the programme for next year’s Kosmopolis Amplified Literature Festival, from 18 to 22 March 2015. The festival, which on its eighth outing is extended from three to five days, will once again be converting the spaces of the CCCB into a place where readers meet writers of books and scripts, musicians, playwrights and journalists from around the world. ...
The Art of Creating New Readers
Jordi Nopca
The literary canon is a compendium of works that overcome the oblivion of time and continue to be read. In the operation of keeping alive books that are not strictly current – by offering them to new readers, who make new interpretations of them – a fundamental role is played by ...
The Elementary Bestiary
Tamara Vázquez Schröder
Particle tracks. (2010, April 20). Retrieved May 15, 2013, from OCW – Universitat de Barcelona Web site “In the good old days, a man would spend a year at his desk doing calculations and then send a telegram to an observatory: ‘Place the telescope at such and such position ...
Guide to following Kosmopolis live on Internet
Kosmopolis
Because Kosmopolis is amplified literature and because we want the festival to reach you wherever you are, we’re streaming some of the talks and activities. We’ve also programmed online coverage of the festival on Twitter so you at home can follow us and take an active part in the ...
Kosmopolis 2013 itineraries
Kosmopolis
There is less than one month to go before the start of the seventh edition of Kosmopolis. The Amplified Literature Fest and we now have everything ready to make the CCCB the meeting place for lovers of literature during 14, 15 and 16 March. As always, the festival programme presents many new ...
Post-novels and other monsters
Jordi Carrion
Explosion! The Legacy of Jackson Pollock was the title of a recent exhibition at the Joan Miró Foundation. What was it that exploded? Painting. Right through the roof. The exhibition allowed us to see one of the ‘evolutions’ of pictorial art in the twentieth century, in terms ...
