‘READ Madrid’ Books and Ideas Festival

On 17 and 18 April, Museo Reina Sofía celebrates READ Madrid, a festival bringing together texts, ideas and people around independent-publishing practices. Activities take place in the Nouvel and Sabatini spaces and bring together those who work with writing not only as a form of expression, but also as a tool for thought.

The programme is built around conversations and meetings where literature, theory and editorial work intersect. Here, attention shifts from ready-made answers to the very process of thinking and debate: how ideas are formed, how they are passed on and how they change in dialogue. Particular emphasis is placed on links with Latin America and on the search for a shared cultural field.

The festival’s themes are organised around three strands. One concerns the reinterpretation of the ‘popular’ beyond usual readings. Another concerns the attempt to speak of justice and loss without simplification. The third focuses on speculative literature as a way of working with memory and imagination.

Over two days, debates, readings and performative proposals take place. The programme includes conversations on language and social contexts, collective experience and writing as a practice, as well as the screening of a work by Lucrecia Martel and a debate on how artistic texts can rethink the present.