This year’s event will feature acclaimed singers and authors Sérgio Godinho and Luísa Sobral, alongside a wide range of Portuguese writers.

In a statement, Vila Real City Council described the festival as an invitation to step into “the world of books.” Beyond conversations with authors, the programme also includes a book fair, supported by the city’s bookshops.

A total of 15 Portuguese writers and one Galician author are on the line-up, including well-known names such as Gonçalo M. Tavares, Tânia Ganho, Frederico Pedreira, Ana Maria Magalhães and Maria Francisca Gama. Six regional authors will also take part, together with musicians Godinho, who published his latest book of stories in June, and Sobral, who made her literary debut this year with a novel inspired by the German couple “Feliz,” who lived as hermits near Vila Real.

The cloisters of the former Government Civil building, located in the city centre, will host informal conversations with novelists, poets, essayists, editors, editors, journalists and book promoters working across radio, television, print, Instagram, TikTok and podcasts. Meanwhile, schools and the book fair space will stage storytelling sessions, recitals, reading concerts and performances blending literature and music.

Actors and performers such as Pedro Lamares, André Gago, Anabela Nóbrega and Alice Neto de Sousa are among those set to lead the readings. There will also be exchanges with publishers like Livros Zigurate and with social media book influencers, aimed at exploring how literature can coexist with the internet as a platform for discussion.

In total, the festival will gather around 60 participants, including teachers and mediators from local schools, with the goal of transmitting to younger generations the value of what organisers call “the most important invention of humanity: the book.”

The programme continues on 2 October with a performance extension at Teatro de Vila Real, where the first Poetry Slam Vila Real will premiere, organised by Cultura Adentro.