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| Latest info > News > Paul Auster, Arundhati Roy and Paulo Coelho to participate in Forum Barcelona 2004 | |
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28 / 11 / 2003
Paul Auster, Arundhati Roy and Paulo Coelho to participate in Forum Barcelona 2004
The Dialogue “The Value of the Word” will assemble next year in Barcelona numerous writers who will reflect upon the value of the written word in the digital era. Among those who have confirmed participation are authors Paul Auster, Arundhati Roy and Paulo Coelho. Prior to the Dialogue, Forum Barcelona 2004 is organizing a variety of pre-Forum activities around the world. Participants in these events will include Mario Vargas Llosa, Susan Sontag, Quim Monzó and Ignacio Ramonet.
Paul Auster, Arundhati Roy and Paulo Coelho are among those who have confirmed their participation in the Dialogue “The Value of the Word,” which will take place in Barcelona from May 17-21, 2004, as part of the Universal Forum of Cultures – Barcelona 2004. The sessions will be held at the Barcelona International Convention Center, which is currently being built at the Forum site.
Delegates from several different chapters of the international writers organization, the PEN Club, will take part in the Dialogue. The conferences will serve as an opportunity for reflection from a multicultural perspective—by representatives from every continent—on the value of words in the digital age. The morning sessions will be devoted to presenting the many facets of the PEN Club’s endeavors. In the afternoon, there will be debates open for participation by the audience, as well as poetry readings and storytelling.
Of particular note are the three round tables in which renowned authors will participate. Among those participating in the first round table, “Shaping Memory through Literature,” are novelists Paul Auster and Jorge Semprún, Peruvian poet Blanca Varela, Turkish-German narrative writer and playwright Emine Sergï Ozdamar and the Aboriginal Australian author Sally Morgan. Such guest speakers as Indian novelist Arundhati Roy, Brazilian author Paulho Coello, Galician novelist and essayist Suso del Toro, Mexican poet Homero Aridjis and Catalan poet Francesc Parcerisas are scheduled to take part in the second round table, “Literature as a Shield of Nature.” The third round table, “Writers’ Responsibilities in the Face of War,” will bring together literary figures such as the North American essayist and Pulitzer Prize winner Frances Fitzgerald, the Russian journalist specialized in Chechnya, Anna Politkóvskaia, and the Afghan narrative writer Waheed Warasta.
Leading up to the Dialogue scheduled for next year are a series of pre-Forum events that will be held all over the world. Some of the most noteworthy happenings include the International PEN Congress, which will take place in Mexico on November 28 (in which M. Vargas Llosa and Ignacio Ramonet will participate, among others); the role of literature in US-European relations staged at the New York City French Institute-Alliance Française on December 4 (with guest speakers such as Susan Sontag, J. Semprún, Quim Monzó and Bernard Henri Lévy); and the first international meeting of writers in Kabul in March of next year, the first gathering of its kind since the fall of the Taliban regime.
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