The Baltazar Dias Municipal Theatre was packed for the MLF’s Opening Session.
People swarmed to the Baltazar Dias Municipal Theatre to meet Mia Couto for the opening session of the Madeira Literary Festival’s 6th edition.
In a talk led by TSF’s journalist Fernando Alves, the Mozambican writer was challenged to comment on one of his own sentences, ‘We can make do with life but it alone is not enough’, taken from his poem ‘Morte Silenciosa, published in his 1983 book ‘Raiz de orvalho e Outros Poemas’.
And the date here is of the essence seeing as to how, after all this time, the writer himself has forgotten exactly what he meant by it. After general laughter died out, the writer excused himself by offering that in order to create new writings and stories, he first has to forget those he has already written.
The talk lasted little longer than an hour. Topics included silence, memories, dreams, the writer’s nights of insomnia (which he confessed to fight by writing on the notebook he keeps in his nightstand), ‘things in name’ and the fears they bring about.
On this topic said that we ‘were conceived to fear not knowing and that as such we must name what we don’t know’, adding that ‘we were taught to fear the unknown, what we do not master’.
To Fernando Alves’ question of whether that fear is also brought about by the threats that surround us in our day-today lives, the writer answered tersely that: ‘The world is full of threats but the biggest threat is within us’.
The first of the ‘Theatre Talks’ ended with questions and an improvised book signing session as the author exited the stage.
The 6th of the Madeira Literary Festival, dealing with ‘Truth and Lies in Literary Fiction’, will last until the 16th of April. The festival will close with a talk with Lídia Jorge about how ‘A great book does not always have the touch of a great man behind it’.
Before that, there will be various other talks as well as the Portuguese artist Jorge Palma’s concerts.
