Until next Friday, May 29, the Cervantes Institute celebrates Benengeli 2026. International Week of Letters in Spanish, which this year reaches its sixth edition and has libraries as its central theme.
The diversity of literature in Spanish will travel the world both in person and digitally, thanks to the networking of centers in thirteen cities: Los Angeles, Belo Horizonte, Brussels, Bordeaux, Chicago, Dakar, Madrid, Manchester, Manila, New York, Oran, Paris, Sydney, as well as activities organized in Caguas, Caracas, Edinburgh and Quito.
Established as a reference within the Spanish language, its in-person and digital activities will take place over a week across five continents, making it a unique and global phenomenon.
It is worth noting that Benengeli 2026 will have the thematic axis of the space of libraries. That splendid place where the memory of humanity is preserved, access to knowledge is democratized, and communities are consolidated around the mystery of words, information, and dialogue.
A form of paradise, as Borges imagined it, which is often a frequent theme in the life and work of many writers who understand real or imaginary libraries, their own or public libraries as the place of imagination. Thirteen are the cities in the Cervantes Institute network that this year will be part of this great meeting that will bring together prominent voices from the literary world in Spanish. A landscape where the aesthetic and generational plurality with which literature in our language approaches the reality of this century unfolds.
Within this great global circuit, multimedia activities carried out by collaborators in the cities of Prague, Seville, Bogotá, Lima, Montevideo, Panama City and Miami; form a great mosaic of letters as a whole. In this way, Benengeli elevates its proposal to consolidate a great global cultural network that encompasses, as a spiritual library, a melting pot of literary cultures.
More than a hundred guests -narrators, poets, playwrights, translators, critics- will discuss at this festival what characterizes writing in Spanish. Free entry. Reserve a seat at this link. It is also possible to follow the event online on the YouTube channel of the Institute.