Held since 2003, the Festa Literária Internacional de Paraty (FLIP) is one of Latin America’s major cultural references and was born inspired by the Literature Festival Hay-on-Wye, in Wales, created in 1988. In May 2026, FLIP was present at the 37th edition of the Hay Festival with several Brazilian authors as part of the UK/Brazil Season of Culture 2025–26.
In July, leading names in contemporary British literature arrive in Paraty, supported by the British Council. Zadie Smith and Hisham Matar reinforce the role of the literary event as a space for dialogue between cultures and as a stage for debates on memory, identity and the political and social challenges that shape writing. Both authors transform personal and collective experiences into works that resonate with readers around the world.
Zadie Smith, daughter of a Jamaican mother and English father, is interviewed by Juliana Borges, columnist at the literary magazine Quatro Cinco Um, in Table 18 – “and this ground does not exist, and this peace is vertigo”. In the conversation, she discusses the construction of her work and the themes that mark her novels: colonialism, immigration, racism and belonging. Since the release of White Teeth in 2000, Smith has established herself as one of the most celebrated voices in English-language literature, winning readers and critics alike with her ironic and profound gaze on multicultural contemporary England.
Throughout her career, Smith has maintained her creative vigour in titles such as On Beauty, shortlisted for the Booker Prize and winner of the Orange Prize, Swing Time, a coming-of-age novel about identity, and NW, an urban epic shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2023, she published The Fraud, her first historical novel, which transports readers to Victorian London and Jamaican sugar plantations, exploring vanity, forbidden passions and the scars of imperialism.
Hisham Matar highlights the power of literature as testimony in the face of authoritarian regimes. Born to Libyan parents, Matar experienced first-hand the disappearance of his father during Muammar Gaddafi’s dictatorship, an event that permeates his work. He is the author of In the Country of Men and Anatomy of a Disappearance. His memoir The Return won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography/Autobiography in 2017. His most recent work, My Friends, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the National Book Award.
In Table 17 – “we no longer know of the boat, but there is always a castaway” – he dialogues with acclaimed Brazilian writer Milton Hatoum, who in his trilogy addresses the impact of Brazil’s military dictatorship on families and memory. Together, the two authors reflect on how fiction can illuminate historical scars and open paths towards freedom of expression.
The full programme of the 24th edition of FLIP, taking place between 22 and 26 July, can be found on the festival’s official website.