The confused mind of a woman mixing real scenes with dreams, memories, and reflections in the loving and lonely daily life in the city of Tokyo, Japan, the largest urban agglomeration on the planet, is the theme of the book “The Briefcase”, by Hiromi Kawakami (Estação Liberdade, 2012). The work, winner of the Tanizaki Prize, one of the most prestigious in Japan, opens the Reading and Writing Workshop on February 17th, which the USP Cultural Preservation Center/Casa de Dona Yayá holds in partnership with Livraria Simples.

Participation is free, upon prior registration through an electronic form available at this link. Those interested can register for all meetings or only on the dates of their interest, depending on the availability of vacancies.

Conceived by the anthropologist and cultural producer Michel Françoso and the writer Sabina Anzuategui, the workshop will promote six face-to-face meetings throughout the year for collective reading, discussion, and exercise of creative writing. Each meeting will have as its theme a work of world contemporary literature, carefully selected to compose a panel that seeks to bring to the debate the diversity of gender, cultures, and experiences.

The workshop’s proposal is to stimulate free and enjoyable reading, as well as to provide an open space for the possibilities of literary creation.

The meetings of the Reading and Writing Workshop will be part of the “Domingo na Yayá” program, with free and open participation. The first of them, on February 17th, and the last, on December 8th, will take place at Mercearia Simples, located at Rua Rocha, 416, Bela Vista, and the others will be held at Casa de Dona Yayá.

Book clubs have multiplied in recent years, motivated by the millenary power of people gathering around stories and fables, making literature a bridge to the expansion of our own world, and words the material for the preservation of our memories.

The mediators Michel Françoso and Sabina Anzuategui have been dedicated to this activity since 2019, always in a free and open manner to all audiences, in meetings held at Livraria Simples.

Sabina Anzuategui, PhD in cinema from ECA-USP, is a professor at Faculdade Cásper Líbero. She has published the novels “I Wrote to You Today” (2023), “A Woman Without Ambition” (2021), “Luciana and the Women” (2019), “The Affection or Notebook on the Table” (2011), and “Panties on the Clothesline” (2005), as well as co-authoring, with Jean-Claude Bernardet, the work “Wet Macula” (2023).

Michel Françoso is an anthropologist, PhD student in Social Anthropology at the University of São Paulo, cultural producer, and researcher on urban memory and real estate speculation in Bixiga.

In 2023, the Reading and Writing Workshop was incorporated into the CPC-USP/Casa de Dona Yayá program, attracting an audience of more than 40 people, including regular and occasional attendees. Before that, in 2022, CPC-USP held the Reading Meetings, whose theme was women’s literature, highlighting important authors of Brazilian and international literature for the exchange of perceptions and experiences.

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Reading and Writing Workshop Schedule

Free registrations by clicking here.