BRAZILIAN LITERATURE IN THE SPOTLIGHT
“Brazil Week” aims to raise awareness about the richness and diversity of Brazilian culture by organising a number of free events open to students, academics, and the general public. It celebrates the fact that there are so many academics and students at the University of Oxford who are working in and on Brazil (from areas as wide-ranging as Literature, Politics, Anthropology, Environmental Science, Linguistics, Theology and Ethnomusicology), and to bring them together, creating dialogues. It also functions to introduce the culture and society of Brazil to the uninitiated. Brazil Week facilitates interaction between the University and the public – including the thousands of Brazilians living and working in the city of Oxford. Over more than ten years, the event has attracted people from far and wide.
The organisers are Professor Claire Williams and Dr Gui Perdigão, from the Portuguese Department (Faculty of Modern Languages). The themes and the guest speakers invited to participate reflect the research interests of undergraduate and postgraduate students, who collaborate in the organisation, hosting and delivery of events.
The theme this year is 'Literature in the Spotlight'. We are delighted to welcome author Natalia Borges Polesso to give both an Author Reading and an academic lecture, as well as presenting two recent films and a new play that adapt or engage closely with the work of twentieth-century author Clarice Lispector.
In 2026, Brazil Week is proudly part of the UK/Brazil Season of Culture (https://www.britishcouncil.org.br/en/programmes/uk-brazil-2025) and has received funding from the British Council and the Guimarães Rosa Institute. We are grateful in particular to Ana Paula Moreno and André Cortez, Counsellor for Cultural Affairs at the Brazilian Embassy in London.
All events are free but please note that they are taking place in several different venues and that some require prior registration.
For any queries, please email Claire Williams or Gui Perdigão
PROGRAMME
SUNDAY 8 FEBRUARY
2-4pm, Fitzhugh Auditorium, Cohen Quad, Walton Street, OX1 2HG
‘A Imitação da Rosa’ / ‘The Imitation of the Rose’
A dramatic adaptation of the moving short story by Clarice Lispector, directed by Carla Kinzo and starring Marília Santos.
This event will be in Portuguese.
Registration: Registration for A Imitacao da Rosa / The Imitation of the Rose (Brazil Week, 2026) – Fill in form
MONDAY 9 FEBRUARY
2-4pm, Dorfman Room, St Peter’s College, New Inn Hall Street, OX1 2DL
Translation workshop with Tom Gatehouse
Tom Gatehouse is a writer, translator and researcher with a background in Latin America. He is currently Senior Writer at Tobacco Tactics, part of the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath and a partner in the global watchdog network STOP. He is also the editor of the book Voices of Latin America: Social movements and the new activism (2019) and translator of Bernardo Kucinski's novels The Past is an Imperfect Tense (2020) and The Congress of the Disappeared (forthcoming in 2025).
Registration: Registration for Translation Workshop with Tom Gatehouse (Brazil Week, 2026) – Fill in form
30 places only.
TUESDAY 10 FEBRUARY
2-4pm, Fitzhugh Auditorium, Cohen Quad, Walton Street, OX1 2HG
Author Reading and Q&A: Natalia Borges Polesso
Natalia Borges Polesso was born in Bento Gonçalves in the south of Brazil. She is a writer and translator (of Sandra Cisneros, and many others), as well as a researcher and university lecturer in Literature and Creative Writing. She is the author of short stories, poetry and novels ranging from realism to science fiction and eco-criticism. Her story collection, Amora won the prestigious Prêmio Jabuti in 2016 and her work has been translated into several languages. In 2017, she was one of only two Brazilian authors on the Bogotá39 list, which selects the most promising Latin American authors under thirty-nine.
5-7pm, Mary Ogilvie Lecture Theatre, St Anne's College, 56 Woodstock Rd, Oxford OX2 6HS
Film Screening: ‘Lispectorante’, followed by Zoom Q&A with director Renata Pinheiro and screenwriter Sérgio Oliveira.
93 minutes. Film in Portuguese, with English subtitles. Q&A in Portuguese.
A woman going through an existential and financial crisis returns to her hometown, the northeastern city of Recife, which she abandoned years before. Through a crack in the wall of the ruins of the house in Recife where Clarice Lispector lived, she glimpses strange and wonderful scenes that will change her life. The protagonist is played by Marcélia Cartaxo, who starred in Suzana Amaral’s famous 1985 adaptation of Lispector’s A Hora da Estrela / The Hour of the Star.
Renata Pinheiro began her career as a visual artist. After an artist residency at John Moores University in Liverpool, she moved into filmmaking. Her latest feature film, Lispectorante, premiered at the Rio International Film Festival. Her previous feature films, Açúcar and Love, Plastic and Noise, were also selected for major international festivals. Her short film Walt Disney Square, co-directed with Sérgio Oliveira, won more than 50 awards, while her first short, Superbarroco, premiered at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes. Her work is marked by the combination of sophisticated visual constructions with emotionally driven storytelling. Renata is one of the most powerful and original voices in contemporary Brazilian cinema.
Sérgio Oliveira is a filmmaker based in Recife. He has directed feature films, documentaries, and several short films, all of which have had a notable trajectory at festivals around the world. He won the Best Director award at the 2016 Rio International Film Festival with the documentary Desert of SOARA and received the Best Screenplay award at the Raindance Film Festival 2021 in the UK for King Car.
WEDNESDAY 11 FEBRUARY
1-3pm, Miles Room, St Peter’s College, New Inn Hall Street, OX1 2DL
Postgraduate Roundtable
Postgraduates from across the University of Oxford will be invited to summarise their research in 10-minute presentations. This is a regular event at Brazil Week, bringing together participants from areas as diverse as Environmental Change, Social Anthropology, Linguistics, History, International Relations, Latin American Studies, Music and Modern Languages.
Organised by Agnes Fanning, Lingchen Huang and Rosalind Moran
For more details, contact Agnes Fanning: agnes.fanning@merton.ox.ac.uk
5-6:30pm, Room 2, Taylorian Institute, St Giles’, OX1 3NA
Lecture: ‘Fabulations of the Anthropocene in Contemporary Brazilian Literature’, Natalia Borges Polesso
Registration is required for those who are not members of the Faculty of Modern Languages:
Guest Lecture: Natalia Borges Polesso: "Fabulations of the Anthropocene" BRAZIL WEEK – Fill in form
Literature can be a bridge between reality and speculation, crisis and creation. In this lecture, I explore how contemporary Brazilian fiction operates as a form of radical imagination and situated knowledge in the age of the Anthropocene. Starting out from my own novels Corpos Secos (Dried Bodies) (2020) and A Extinção das Abelhas (The Extinction of Bees) (2021), and moving on to other Brazilian writers, I discuss how writing responds to political rupture, environmental collapse, and chemical colonialism, anticipating real-world disasters before they unfold. Far from prophecy, this practice is rooted in observation, speculation, and fabulation: a deliberate attention to words and worlds in transformation. This lecture frames fiction as an “anthroposcenic device”, a tool for thinking through emergency, extraction, and possible futures. In a time when politicians ask, “Who could ever imagine?”, Brazilian writers are already there, mapping the unimaginable.
Registration is required for those who are not members of the Faculty of Modern Languages
THURSDAY 12 FEBRUARY
5pm, Main Hall, Taylorian Institute, St Giles’, OX1 3NA
Film Screening: ‘Rio de Clarice’, introduced by director Nicole Algranti in Portuguese via Zoom
Registration is required for those who are not members of the Faculty of Modern Languages:
Film Screening - "Rio de Clarice / The Sound of Footsteps" (2025) BRAZIL WEEK – Fill in form
Nicole Allgranti is a filmmaker and Indigenist, who, even as a child, dreamed of being an artist. She trained in theatre, but her real passion was always cinema. Nicole’s films range from documentaries about (and with) Indigenous peoples – such as Comida Ancestral [Food from the Origins], on the traditional foods of more than ten Indigenous groups – to features, such as De Corpo Inteiro: Entrevistas which dramatizes on screen some of the interviews with famous people done by her great-aunt, Clarice Lispector.
Her latest feature is Rio de Clarice [The Sound of Footsteps] (2025), in which five of Lispector’s best-loved short stories have been adapted and directed by five female directors. The stories, ‘Feliz Aniversário / Happy Birthday’, ‘Mal estar de um anjo / An Angel’s Disquiet’, ‘A Bela e a Fera / The Beauty and the Beast’, ‘Amor / Love’ and ‘Preciosidade / Preciousness’ span the length of Lispector’s career and all of them deal with the daily experiences of women and girls.
The trailer is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ojoLk1sDKU
We are grateful to the British Council and Instituto Guimarães Rosa, Ana Paula Moreno, Sylvie Fredouille, Cristina Marziano, Digna Martínez Sabaris, Aggie Fanning, Lingchen Huang and Rosalind Moran for organising the postgraduate roundtable, and Anders Hei for designing the poster.
The UK/Brazil Season of Culture 2025-26 is a year-long cultural exchange between the two countries that showcases the diverse and vibrant arts sectors of both nations. It marks 200 years of diplomatic relations and is designed to strengthen and build cultural connections between the UK and Brazil. It is a joint initiative between the British Council and Brazil’s Instituto Guimarães Rosa (IGR). The artistic programme across both countries encompasses theatre, film, visual arts, dance, music and literature and features a series of talks and academic conferences.
