International authors, bookstores and public spaces converge around literature.
PORTO, Portugal | June 2026
Porto will become a vast literary stage from June 24 to 29 as the BABELL festival brings internationally celebrated writers, Portuguese authors, musicians and visual artists into the historic center. Organized by the Livraria Lello Foundation with support from the Porto City Council, the event aims to establish itself among Europe’s major literary gatherings. Its program extends beyond traditional auditoriums by placing conversations, readings and performances across streets, squares and cultural landmarks. The result is designed to make literature part of the city’s daily movement.
The international guest list includes Nobel Prize-winning Polish author Olga Tokarczuk and several writers recognized with the world’s most prestigious literary honors. Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Julian Barnes and László Krasznahorkai are among the headline participants. Their presence gives the inaugural program considerable intellectual and cultural weight. Each represents a different literary tradition while addressing themes that cross national and linguistic boundaries.
Latin American and Lusophone voices will also occupy an important place within the festival. Brazilian writers Conceição Evaristo, Milton Hatoum and Rafal Gallo are scheduled to participate in conversations, alongside Colombian author Héctor Abad Faciolince. Their inclusion broadens the event beyond a primarily European framework. It also reinforces Portuguese as a language connecting several continents and literary histories.
Portugal’s contemporary literary scene will be represented by authors including Lídia Jorge, Gonçalo M. Tavares, Dulce Maria Cardoso, Valter Hugo Mãe and Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida. Bruno Vieira Amaral, Isabel Rio Novo, Filipa Martins, João de Melo, Ana Paula Tavares and other national figures are also part of the program. This balance prevents the event from functioning only as a showcase for visiting celebrities. Portuguese writers remain central to the conversations taking place in their own cultural environment.
BABELL introduces an unusual admission system intended to benefit local bookstores directly. Access to sessions is obtained by purchasing a book from a network of approximately 50 participating bookshops and antiquarian dealers. Each purchase provides a voucher code that allows the reader to reserve a seat, subject to venue capacity. Attendees must also arrive carrying a book in their hands.
The model turns admission into an economic and symbolic act. Instead of buying a conventional festival ticket, visitors support the businesses that sustain literary life throughout the year. The requirement encourages readers to enter independent bookstores, discover unfamiliar titles and participate in the local publishing ecosystem. Organizers expect the system to bring thousands of people into shops across Porto.
The festival’s geography is equally distinctive. Activities will take place in central locations positioned within approximately 15 minutes of one another on foot. Praça dos Leões, Avenida dos Aliados, Praça da Batalha, the Ribeira district and the area surrounding the Clérigos Tower will become part of the literary route. Walking between sessions will allow audiences to experience the city itself as an extension of the program.
Public space is therefore not merely a backdrop. Street poetry, exhibitions, historical classes and children’s activities are intended to interrupt ordinary urban routines with moments of reading and performance. Residents who did not initially plan to attend may encounter literature while crossing a square or walking through the city center. The structure reduces the separation between cultural institutions and daily public life.
The program also expands beyond books through cinema, music and contemporary art. On June 25, Avenida dos Aliados will host a concert featuring Pedro Abrunhosa and Portuguese band GNR. They are expected to present previously unheard material inspired by the poetry of northern Portugal. A surprise guest with strong connections to Porto will also appear.
The following day, Bárbara Bandeira and celebrated fado singer Carminho will perform. These concerts connect literary language with popular and traditional music, showing how poetry can move between printed pages and live sound. Their inclusion also increases the festival’s appeal beyond established readers. BABELL is positioning literature as a meeting point for several artistic disciplines.
Chinese contemporary artist Cai Guo-Qiang will present another major moment in the program on June 27. Known internationally for large-scale works and for his involvement in the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympic Games, he will unveil a new creation conceived specifically for BABELL. It will be his first presentation of this kind in Portugal. The commission gives the festival an international visual-art dimension alongside its literary identity.
The scale of the project reflects the symbolic importance of Porto’s relationship with books. The city is already home to Livraria Lello, one of the world’s best-known bookstores and the institution behind the foundation organizing the festival. BABELL attempts to extend that reputation across the urban center rather than concentrating it inside a single landmark. The ambition is to make the entire city feel connected to reading.
The title evokes Babel, the ancient image of many languages occupying the same space. In Porto, that idea becomes an opportunity rather than a source of confusion. Authors from different countries, generations and traditions will share stages while readers move among them. Translation and conversation become methods for crossing cultural boundaries.
The festival also arrives at a time when the publishing industry is confronting competition from digital entertainment, changing reading habits and economic pressure on independent booksellers. BABELL responds by treating bookstores as essential partners rather than peripheral vendors. Its admission model links cultural prestige with direct commercial activity. The event’s success will partly depend on whether visitors continue supporting those businesses after the final session ends.
Organizers are attempting to create an experience in which reading becomes social, visible and physically connected to the city. A book purchase opens access to an author, a walk leads to another event and a public square becomes a temporary literary forum. That structure gives participants several ways to engage without following a rigid conference format. Porto becomes both venue and narrative.
BABELL’s strongest promise lies in its ability to connect major international names with local cultural infrastructure. The presence of Atwood, Rushdie, Tokarczuk and Barnes may attract global attention, but the festival’s long-term value will depend on the relationships it creates among readers, writers and bookstores. By turning admission into participation, it asks audiences to carry literature with them. For six days, Porto will attempt to become not only a city that hosts books, but a city shaped by them.
A city reads differently when every street becomes a page. / Una ciudad lee de otra manera cuando cada calle se convierte en una página.