Flip - Festa Literária Internacional de Paraty (July 30 to Aug.3, 2014) - is the annual literary and cultural festival in Paraty, RJ.

Demand for Flip is so great -- 20,000 visitors in 2013 -- that some of the local pousadas start pre-booking for the next year while the current edition is still going on.

This year, the event in one of Brazil's most delightful colonial towns will open with a show by Gal Costa and bring together 47 authors from 15 nationalities.


They will take part in debates shown in real time from the Authors' Marquee to two big screens in Paraty's historic center and also on the official site (www.flip.org.br).

Among the Brazilian authors are Paulo Mendes da Rocha, cartoonist Jaguar, photographer Claudia Andujar, Mario Prata, and actress Fernanda Torres.  International guests include Andrew Solomon, Jorge Edwards, Graciela Mochkofsky, Juan Villoro,Daniel Alarcón, and Vladímir Sorókin, the first Russian author in Flip and one of the representatives of literary resistance to the Putin era.

Renowned authors in past editions include Brazilians Ariano Suassuna (who died last July 23), Ruy Castro and Lygia Fagundes Telles, Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, and Nadine Gordimer. 

Associação Casa Azul, which generated Flip, is a non-governmental organization dedicated to urban improvement and educational programs in Paraty.

Commemorated Authors:

Every year, Flip pays homage to a Brazilian writer. The 2014 edition is commemorating Millôr Fernandes (1923-2012), one of the featured authors in the very first Flip.

The genius of Millôr Fernandes, whose writings and drawings encompass a great diversity of styles -- maxims, haiku, fables, caricatures -- and contain a great deal of social commentary with mordant humor, inspired the publication of Millôr 100 + 100: Desenhos e Frases, a book which will be launched at the festival.

The book was organized by artist Cássio Loredano and journalist Sérgio Augusto, who created 100 pairs of drawings and sentences chosen from the Millôr collection now belonging to the Moreira Sales Institute (www.ims.com.br).

Flipinha:

Flipinha is the Flip event for youngsters, when students from Paraty display work inspired by literature. Fun and education go hand-in-hand at Flip, which features community-oriented projects aimed at promoting a love of reading and cultural enrichment.

Over the course of the years, kids' projects created for Flipinha have become Biblioteca Azul, or the Blue Library, with more than 8,000 volumes. Kids involved in Flipinha projects - that is, all the public school children and 95% of private school students - have also created Cirandas de Paraty, a compilation of local oral traditions and history.

Flipzona:

For teenagers, there's Flipzona, created in 2009 and, like Flipinha, a continuous educational project promoting reading and digital inclusion.

During Flip, the official Flipzona schedule includes drama, writing, animation, video, photography and audio production workshops, as well as debates with writers of teen literature.

 

Post-Flip:

Not able to make it to Paraty? Maybe you can catch up with the authors taking part in Post-Flip in Rio and Sao Paulo. See the schedule (with dates listed day/month): 

www.flip.org.br/pos_flip2014.php 

 

Paraty:

 

Listed as a National Heritage Site, Paraty is the seaside end of the Royal Road, which connected the gold and diamond mines in Minas Gerais to the Paraty port during the colonial period in Brazil.

Paraty beaches and islands are among the most beautiful in Brazil and the city has applied for listing as a Unesco World Heritage Site.