Authors from more than 10 different countries will gather at The Macau Literary Festival – The Script Road that will begin on the 5th of March 2016.
This year, writers, artists and musicians will come from Macau, Hong Kong and the Portuguese speaking countries, Ireland, Australia, Spain, Wales, Sweden, Philippines and the United States.
“We are putting all our efforts on the diversification of the festival,” said Ricardo Pinto, the director of the festival.
The festival will pay tribute to two writers: Tang Xianzu and Camilo Pessanha.
2016 marks the 400th anniversary of Tang Xianzu’s death, the Chinese playwright of the Ming Dynasty that was one of the first to establish contact with foreigners in Macau. This year also marks the 90th anniversary of Camilo Pessanha’s death, the famous Portuguese poet that lived and died in Macau.
Pinto also stressed that this year’s festival will carry out the same model of success based on the festival’s first edition. “We will still have exhibitions and music concerts.”
Part of the wide range of authors invited to the festival is the Pulitzer prize winner, Junot Díaz; the renowned Chinese writer Chan Koonchung; the Portuguese historian and columnist José Pacheco Pereira, the Brazilian award winner Luiz Ruffato and also the British writer fluent in Chinese, Mark O’Neill.
Ana Maria Katigbak-Lacuesta and Angelo R. Lacuesta, both from the Phillipines will be on the panel. Hélder Beja, vice-director of the festival says “the choice was made according to the great quality of the writers but also to get even more closer to one of the biggest communities in Macau.”
Local filmmakers will also have a strong participation this year with Tracy Choi, Emily Chan and Cheong Kin Man. Portuguese filmmakers Luís Filipe Rocha and Sofia Marques will also show screenings of their work.
On the visual arts field, the organisation invited local artists Eric Fok and Alexandre Marreiros, Portuguese painter Pedro Barreiros and the Chinese Hunan-born painter and calligrapher Ouyang Shijan, who will paint live at the Old Court Building.
The Literary Festival will be held between the 5th and 19th of March with the support of the Macau Cultural Affairs Bureau and the Macau Foundation.
(macaunews)
