Guilherme Emílio and Cândido Oliveira Martins spoke of the importance of holding the event under the sign of Camões.
The opening session of the new edition of Esposende's ‘Catraia de Livros’ took place on Saturday evening. This new edition consists of a Reading Week, accompanied by a Book Fair in a central space on the city's riverside, next to the municipal swimming pools.
The programme for this ‘Catraia de Livros’ - the name ‘catraia’ is a tribute to Esposende's traditional fishing boat - runs from 21 to 30 March and has the particularity of involving several institutions: the Esposende Municipality, the Manuel Boaventura Municipal Library, the School Library Network and the council's schools.
It should be noted that this new edition of ‘Catraia de Livros’ has adopted the theme ‘Under the pen of Camões’, thus fitting into the spirit of the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the birth of Luís de Camões (1525-2025), with a packed programme of activities.
At the opening session, which featured a dance performance by the years, Liliana Silva from the Esposende School Library Network (RBECE) spoke, emphasising the importance of reading education among young people. At the same time, she emphasised the need to implement various strategies leading to this macro objective, with the proper coordination of various institutions in Esposende.
This was followed by a speech by Cândido Oliveira Martins, a professor at the Portuguese Catholic University (Braga), representing the commissioner of the Commemorations of the 5th Centenary of the Birth of Luís de Camões. He emphasised the importance of celebrating the work of Luís de Camões, not only because of its aesthetic and heritage value in Portuguese literature, but also because of its cultural and identity significance in the Portuguese imagination. For this reason, he emphasised that it made perfect sense for the Camões celebrations to effectively involve the most diverse institutions, in a broad and diverse programme that truly motivates citizens.
Finally, in the presence of other municipal councillors, the Mayor of Esposende, Guilherme Emídio, spoke, emphasising the importance of this cultural event ‘Catraia de Livros’ under the sign of Camões. At the same time, he praised the joint work of the municipality's various institutions to effectively promote culture for all, through dynamic action based on books and reading. This cultural event seeks to combine tradition and modernity, he concluded.
This year's full ‘Catraia de Livros’ programme (available online) is varied and aimed at a wide range of audiences, from youngsters to adults. The programme includes book presentations, specific activities such as ‘Story Time’, dramatised readings, the Cávado Intermunicipal Reading Competition (municipal phase), poetry recitations, themed exhibitions, workshops, training sessions, concerts, debates, among other activities.
Catraia de Livros’ seeks to encourage the pleasure of reading by promoting a meeting between books, their authors and readers, actors and storytellers, involving the whole community as much as possible. Among the guests at this cultural event are Rodrigo Guedes de Carvalho, Raquel Ramos, Maria Francisca Gama, Maria Luísa Malato, Pedro Soromenho, Estefânia Surreira and Luísa Gonçalves, among many others.
This year's ‘Catraia de Livros’ programme is coordinated by Margarida Capitão, from the Manuel Boaventura Municipal Library, with the active participation of the Esposende School Library Network.
