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For the second year in a row, the Center for Black European Studies & the Atlantic (CBESA) will curate the FLUP Literary Festival in Rio de Janeiro.

This year’s edition of FLUP will take place from November 17–23 and 27–30, in Madureira, one of Rio’s most emblematic neighborhoods. The festival will bring together a remarkable group of thinkers, writers, and artists, including Michelle Alexander, Christina Sharpe, Dionne Brand, Steve McQueen, Awa Thiam, Patrick Chamoiseau, Ananda Devi, Ghayath Almadhoun, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Audrey Célestine, Ruha Benjamin, Cristina Roldão, Audrey Pulvar, Mireille Fanon, Bonaventure Nkidung, Felwine Sarr, Leda Maria Martins, Denis Pourawa, Manthia Diawara, Anne Lafont, Nadia Yala Kisukidi, Carla Akotirene, Olivier Marboeuf, Liz Gomis, Yanick Lahens, Maboula Soumahoro, Michael Roch, Alex Ratts, Malcolm Ferdinand, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Dénètem Touam Bona, Fred Kuwornu, and Meryanne Loum-Martin, among many others.

The 2025 theme, “Ideias para Encantar o Mundo: Escrevivências, Sonhos e Batidões” (Ideas to Enchant the World: Write-Living, Dreams and Beats), celebrates the revolutionary legacy of the Caribbean (its political imagination, its poetry, its rhythms) and the way this heritage continues to shape the African diaspora, especially through Brazil’s vibrant sound system culture. We are especially honored to pay tribute to Conceição Evaristo, whose concept of “Escrevivência” (Write-Living) continues to inspire generations of artists and thinkers to tell their stories on their own terms.

About FLUP

For more than a decade, FLUP (Festa Literária das Periferias) has been one of Brazil’s most vital literary and cultural events. Founded to bring literature into the peripheries of Rio de Janeiro, it has transformed public space into a meeting ground for imagination, community, and change.

FLUP has been held in places like Morro dos Prazeres, Vigário Geral, Mangueira, Cidade de Deus, and Maré, as well as in cultural centers such as the Museu de Arte do Rio (MAR) and the Circo Voador in Lapa. Each edition builds bridges between the city’s center and its margins, between the written word and lived experience.

Over the years, the festival has welcomed major international figures including Bernardine Evaristo, Afua Hirsch, Oyeronke Oyewumi, and Christiane Taubira. In 2024, FLUP hosted an unforgettable gathering of Black women writers, thinkers, and artists like Conceição Evaristo, Sueli Carneiro, and Leda Maria Martins, affirming its place as a global platform for Black and peripheral voices.

A Festival Rooted in the Mangrove

The 2025 edition takes inspiration from the mangrove, a symbol of resilience, interconnection, and renewal. The mangrove grows where land and sea meet; its roots hold the earth together, creating life in the most unstable of places. This image captures FLUP’s spirit: rooted, open to the world, and constantly creating.

This year’s program celebrates the music and poetry of the Black Atlantic, with connections to Africa, the Americas, Europe, the Caribbean, and special partnerships with the government of France (through the year of Brazil in France), the United Kingdom, (through the UK/Brazil Crossed Years). 

Enchanting the World

At a time when exclusionary ideologies are gaining ground globally, FLUP responds with imagination, rhythm, and community. “Ideas to Enchant the World” is both a celebration and a call to resist through creativity, to dream together, to turn literature, art, and music into acts of hope.