THE SANT JORDI USA FESTIVAL OF BOOKS, ROSES & THE ARTS (April 18-24, 2022) provides audiences with access in English to literature from the broadest possible range of countries and languages. In 2022, as we emerge from the pandemic, we are thrilled to partner with the Jersey City Theater Center, our esteemed host for a series of beautiful and timely exhibitions and performances. New Jersey City University will also be our partner for in-person and online events.

Inevitably, an important aspect of this year’s festival includes considerations of war and its never-ending traumas, and other disasters, natural and synthetic, in art and in literature. Some of the amazing and interesting projects we are presenting this year feature a focus on the Spanish Civil War, including the exhibition Under the Light of the Sea, an exploration of the space of torture in the Spanish Civil War, and Brigadistes: Lives for Liberty, a book of thumbnail portraits of international volunteers in that war, as well as translations from Yiddish of writings on the Spanish Civil War, curated by Madeline Cohen; a conversation about prophetic literature and ecological disaster featuring The Fires by Icelandic author Sigríður Hagalín Björnsdóttir and translator Larissa Kyzer; a photographic exhibition and documentary by the Catalan collective Associació Cultura i Conflicte (Culture and Conflict Association) from the perspective of women who survived rape in the Balkan Wars accompanied by Things They Said, a gala dance program by David Rodríguez and Luke Prunty evoking the renowned Catalan composer and lifelong activist for peace, Pau Casals.

Not everything is trauma, though, and we are delighted to offer a presentation of “New Trends in Women’s Writing in Catalan” with Mara Faye Lethem who will read from her translation of Irene Solà’s acclaimed When I Sing, Mountains Dance and Bel Olid who will read from Laura McLoughlin’s translation of her book, Wilder Winds, followed by a moderated discussion of the current panorama. And there is a stunning immersive exploration in Close-Up/Primer Pla of what an artist finds when she goes home again, through the fractal images of Catalan landscape and architecture by artists Laia Cabrera and Isabelle Duverger. On April 22nd there will be a special focus on Brazilian literature including two major just- translated novels, Moldy Strawberries by Caio Fernando Abreu, translated by Bruna Dantas Lobato about gay life under the dictatorship, followed by a reading of Elton Uliana’s translation of his play The Man and La Mancha; and Phenotypes, by Paulo Scott, translated by Daniel Hahn, and longlisted for the International Booker Award, probing the old wounds of race in Brazil in the present, while Ursula is a translation of an 1859 novel by a free black abolitionist, Maria Firmina dos Reis. To complete the panorama there will be reading from innovative works by Carla Bessa, stagings by renowned LGBTQ+ performers, and more.

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