CAPUCHOS TALKS

If there is one anniversary deserving special attention in 2024, it is undoubtedly the 500th anniversary of the birth of the greatest poet in the Portuguese language: Luís Vaz de Camões. Portuguese identity was largely shaped in the ten Cantos of “Os Lusíadas”. Even considering the changes in sensibility that have occurred since then, the "wit and art" of the Poet continue to make us identify him with the language in which we express ourselves, "the language of Camões".
Among the anniversaries to which we will dedicate one of the sessions of the Capuchos Talks this year, we have the centenary of the birth of Sebastião da Gama, poet of Arrábida and precursor of an environmental sensitivity far ahead of his time.
2024 is also the year that marks the centenary of the death of one of the great visionaries of 20th-century literature. So much so that even those who have never read him are familiar with the adjective created from his unavoidable name and the work he left us: we all know the meaning of the word "Kafkaesque", derived from the name of Franz Kafka; perhaps there is no better tribute to a literary work than this implantation in common language.
Based on these three anniversaries, we will have three colloquial meetings, bringing together our curiosity as common readers with the knowledge of those who are familiar with the work of these three remarkable literary creators. 

Carlos Vaz Marques
Curator and moderator of the Capuchos Talks