Nélida Piñon, Princess of Asturias Award for Literature, will give her name to the Rio de Janeiro library, to which she will donate her private collection of more than 7,000 books

The director of the Cervantes Institute travels to Brazil to inaugurate the libraries of Rio and Salvador and sign agreements with state institutions

photo_camera PHOTO/INSTITUTO CERVANTES - Luis García Montero

The Director of the Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero, will travel to Brazil next week - from 20 to 23 June - to inaugurate, in Rio de Janeiro and Salvador de Bahía, the libraries of the two Cervantes Institutes, named after Nélida Piñon, in recognition of the Brazilian writer's donation of her personal library to the centre, and José García Nieto, in the second. He will also hold institutional meetings and sign five collaboration agreements with Brazilian entities, including an agreement with the Secretariat of Education of the State of Bahia for the sale of 40,000 AVE Global licences (Aula Virtual de Español).

At the Cervantes Centre in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil's second most populous city, Nélida Piñon (Rio de Janeiro, 1937), Princess of Asturias Award for Literature and member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, will inaugurate together with García Montero on Monday 20 June (18:30 local time in Rio de Janeiro) the library that will bear her name, an institution to which she will donate her personal collection of more than 7,000 volumes, some of them with annotations in the margins made by the author herself.

The inauguration ceremony will be attended by the academic and former president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, Domício Proença; the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes; and the Spanish ambassador to Brazil, Fernando García Casas. Afterwards, the honoured writer and the director of the Cervantes Institute will hold a dialogue followed by the signing of the act of donation of Nélida Piñon's personal library to the Cervantes Institute and the signing of the Book of Honour.

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 Nélida Piñon's legacy: more than 7,000 volumes

Over a career spanning more than six decades, Nélida Piñon built up a vast library that shaped her intellectual formation. This donation is testimony to the author's deep connection with Spain, her family's country of origin and the country of which she acquired citizenship earlier this year.

The bequest consists of publications - and a few objets d'art - on the history of the Middle Ages, classical literature, religion, French and English classics and Galician culture, as well as the private library inherited from the lexicographer Elza Tavares. Many of the books are dedicated by Brazilian writers such as Clarice Lispector, Rachel de Queiroz, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Guimarães Rosa and Lygia Fagundes Telles; and international writers such as José Saramago, Mario Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes, Concha Méndez and Gabriel García Márquez.

40,000 AVE licences to teach Spanish in Bahia

The programme of activities in Salvador de Bahía, capital of the State of Bahía in the north-eastern region of the country, will begin on Tuesday 21 June with a visit to the Prefeitura - the city's town hall - where the director of Cervantes will sign a collaboration agreement with the mayor, Bruno Reis. Afterwards, at the Secretariat of Culture of the State of Bahia, García Montero will sign an agreement with this institution, represented by the Secretary of Culture, Arany Santana.

The institutional meetings will be completed the following day, Wednesday 22 June, with García Montero's meeting with the Governor of Bahia, Rui Costa, and the subsequent signing, with the Secretary of Education, Danilo de Melo Souza, of a general protocol of action for the sale of 40,000 licences for the AVE Global platform (Aula Virtual de Español) to this region. This agreement will enable the activation of the Instituto Cervantes' online Spanish courses in public schools in the State of Bahia, at the primary and secondary levels.

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Library of Salvador, a tribute to José García Nieto

On the afternoon of Tuesday 21 June, the Instituto Cervantes in Salvador will celebrate a festive day with the inauguration of the library named after José García Nieto (1914-2001), in honour of the 1996 Cervantes Prize-winning poet; a space dedicated to research and cultural exchange, with more than 7,000 works in Spanish and a digital collection of 14,000 documents.

The ceremony will be attended by the director of the Cervantes Institute and authorities from the Prefeitura de Salvador and the Government of the State of Bahia, as well as the Spanish Ambassador to Brazil, Fernando García Casas, the Consul General of Spain in Salvador, Carlos Pérez-Desoy Fages, and Paloma García Nieto, the writer's daughter and president of the José García Nieto Foundation. The event can be followed live on the centre's YouTube channel (18:30 local time in Salvador de Bahía).

The event will include the presentation of García Nieto's first work translated into Portuguese, "A Orillas del Duero: Pequeña antología poética de José García Nieto", a special edition by Bahian poets: Aleilton Fonseca, Alex Simões, Carlos della Paschoa, Clarissa Macedo, Décio Torres, Douglas de Almeida, Esther Blanco, Maria Dolores Rodrigues, Nívia Vasconcellos, Rita Santana and Wladimir Cazé. The centre's library will also open to the public, until 22 July, the exhibition "A Orillas del Duero: vida y obra de José García Nieto" curated by Alex Simões, which compiles the writer's most important works, and will host a violin recital by the Chilean performer Francisco Roa of the Bahia Symphony Orchestra.

As part of this activity, the director of the Cervantes will sign collaboration agreements with two cultural institutions in the State of Bahia: the Casa de Jorge Amado Foundation, responsible for preserving the Brazilian writer's collection and promoting the development of cultural activities in the region; and the Pedro Calmon Foundation, an organ of the Bahia State Secretariat of Culture which coordinates the State Public Archive and the State Public Library System. Their directors, Angela Fraga and Zulú Araujo, respectively, will sign the agreements.

Submitted by José Antonio Sierra, Hispanismo advisor.

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