WRITERS AND THE ORIENT 

6 February

WRITERS AND THE Orient

Cycle of Speakers

Coordinator: Serafina Martins (Professor at the Faculdade de Letras, Lisbon University and coordinator of the future dictionary of Portuguese Literary Orientalism)

FLOOR 4 New DelHi/Beijing rOOM

Dates: 6 and 20 February, 6 and 20 March and 3 and 17 April

Time: 18.00 to 19.00

FREE ENTRANCE

6 February: João Aguiar

20 February: José Pedro Castanheira

6 March: Jacinto Lucas Pires

20 March: Marcelo Duarte Mathias

3 April: Gil de Carvalho

The interest of Portuguese society in the East and particularly in the Far East is increasingly on the rise. This begins with university studies – take the success of the degree in Oriental Language and Culture at the University of Minho as well as the launch in the 2008/2009 academic year of a degree in Asian Studies at the Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon. Take also the enthusiasm with which the Portuguese public greeted the opening of the Museu do Oriente.

Such reasons, among others explain the Fundação Oriente decision to stage this series of speakers by contemporary Portuguese writers targeting a wide reaching audience. There is also the objective of promoting ties between Portugal and the East through literature, considering that one of the best means of achieve such objectives would be to listen to what the writers themselves have to say, for example, about voyages they have been on, writers that have influenced them, creative processes or the image of the Orient that they have constructed. This Oriental facet is diverse – some with direct knowledge of Asian lands and culture while others make their approach via literature and history as is the case with authors interested in the Portuguese Voyages of Discovery or by traditions relating to the Portuguese diaspora that began with The Lusiads.