Rede Oficina
Gangue de Guimarães
Coproductions
Residências Artísticas
Creative Grants
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Networks And Partnerships
FRIDAYS 27 FEBRUARY, 27 MARCH AND 24 APRIL, 9:30 PM
Catching a Fish with Your Hands
Writing a book is casting memory into the future. How do we look at life and rewrite it into stories, poems and fictions that feed the imagination of millions of readers? Memory is as hard to grasp as catching a fish with your hands, but how do we hold it, shape it and fictionalise it from multiple points of view? Words, in the form of literature, play a central role in the creation of worlds that often, as Oscar Wilde suggested, put life into perspective: does art imitate life, or does life imitate art?
On the last Friday of each month*, at the Casa da Memória de Guimarães, we will be in conversation with a guest about memory, literature and many other things. This informal gathering will be punctuated by open readings. Bring poems, excerpts, micro-stories or words you would like to read, and join us for a glass of wine and (more than) literary exchanges.
[NOTE: “…apanhar um peixe / com as mãos” are verses from a poem by Adília Lopes]
* The programme does not take place in August and December. In 2026, exceptionally, it will not take place in January.
Free admission, subject to venue capacity
Francisca Camelo
Francisca Camelo was born in Porto in 1990. She is the author of Cassiopeia, Photoautomat, O Quarto Rosa (semifinalist for the Oceanos Award 2019), A Importância do Pequeno-almoço, Quem me comeu a carne, and A Casa Invisível (winner of the Álvaro Magalhães Iberian Award for children’s and youth literature). She also wrote the libretto for the opera Torre da Memória. Her poems have appeared in various magazines and anthologies. She is dedicated to leading poetry workshops and, more recently, has been involved in several documentary poetry projects.
Rafael Gallo
Rafael Gallo was born in 1981 in São Paulo, Brazil, and currently lives in Lisbon. He is the author of Dor Fantasma, a novel that won the José Saramago Award 2022 (Porto Editora/Biblioteca Azul); Rebentar (Porto Editora/Record), a novel that won the São Paulo Literature Award; and Réveillon e outros dias (Record, 2012), a collection of short stories that won the SESC Literature Award 2012. His most recent book is Cavalos no Escuro, published by Editora Record in 2024. He also has various texts published in anthologies and collections in countries including France, the United States, Cuba, Ecuador, and Mozambique.
Manuella Bezerra de Melo
Manuella Bezerra de Melo works with words. She writes, researches, edits, plays, and experiments. She is the author of seven books, mostly poetry, but also including short stories and essays. Among them are Para que roam os cães nessa hecatombe (Macabea, 2020), with a foreword by Ana Luísa Amaral; Um fado Atlântico (Urutau, 2021); and Para comer com o coração de Dom Pedro (Patuá, 2023; Urutau, 2024). Her poems, articles, and chronicles have been published in anthologies, literary journals, and academic magazines in Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Cape Verde, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Spain, and the United States. She is also the curator and organizer of the anthology series Volta para tua terra (Urutau).
She holds a degree in journalism, a postgraduate degree in interculturality (Universidade Católica), a master’s in Literary Theory, and a PhD in Comparative Modernities: Literatures, Arts, and Culture from the University of Minho.
Currently, she is editorial coordinator at the online magazine Formigueiro.
Hannah Bastos
Hannah Bastos is a researcher, writer, and cultural producer.
She is pursuing a master’s degree in Portuguese Language Literatures at the University of Minho, where she studies African and Afro-diasporic literatures, with a focus on female authorship and cultural mediation practices. She is the founder, moderator, and independent bookseller of the reading club Mulheres do Atlântico, dedicated to works by African and diasporic Black women, and works as a mediator in literary and cultural events. She is part of the organization of the event Mulheres do Atlântico – Nossa Literatura and the Minha Poetry Slam, a spoken poetry championship in Portugal.
She is the author of the book Sereias – Anjos Nadam ou Voam? (Urutau, 2024) and has short stories and poems published in anthologies and journals in Brazil, Portugal, and Cape Verde. Her work bridges academic research and artistic creation, focusing on Black, female, and Afro-diasporic narratives.
