“Ser escritor? Interrogação levada dos diabos.”
— Ruben A.
Colloquium The Incredible Ruben A.
Event Slider
Date
- 10:00 / Cancelled 10:00 / Sold out Tuesday, 10:00
Location
Auditorium 3 Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
In honour of the writer Ruben A., the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon are organising a colloquium to mark the 50th anniversary of his death.
Ruben A. (Ruben Alfredo Andresen Leitão, 1920-1975) is one of the most extraordinary prose writers in the Portuguese language and one of the most unique Portuguese writers of the second half of the 20th century. Having distinguished himself in the field of fiction with several narrative and dramatic works, notably his landmark novel A Torre da Barbela (1965), Ruben A. was primarily responsible for an absolutely unique and inventive reconfiguration of autobiographical writing styles, thanks to the personal and intellectual memories that gave rise to the various volumes of his Páginas (1949-1970) and O Mundo à Minha Procura (1964-1968).
In a word borrowed from Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, perhaps the impact of what Ruben A. wrote and published in around 25 years of activity, in which he always sought to avoid the risks of “prosa chalada” [crazy prose], can be described as: “alvoroço” [commotion].
To celebrate this commotion, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, in collaboration with the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon, is organising a colloquium in honour of Ruben A. on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his death, following the commemoration of the centenary of the writer’s birth in 2020. The colloquium, which brings together various types of readers and witnesses, aims to keep alive the critical discussion about this work which, above all, belongs to the world.
Speakers
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Alexandra Moreira da Silva
Professor at Sorbonne Nouvelle University and member of the Research Group on the Poetics of Modern and Contemporary Drama (IRET). Playwright and translator, she has collaborated on theatre projects in Portugal, Spain and France. She has translated French and Spanish-language authors and Portuguese and Brazilian texts into French. She has co-edited books and published articles on dramaturgy, contemporary stage practices and theatre translation. She is a member of the Lusophone Committee of Maison Antoine Vitez and the Reading Committee of the Contemporary Drama Festival ‘La Mousson d’été’. She directs the collection of dramatic texts ‘Domaine étranger’ for the publisher Les Solitaires Intempestifs.
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António M. Feijó
President of the Board of Trustees of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation since May 2022 and Professor Emeritus at the University of Lisbon, where he was Director of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. He was Vice-Rector and Pro-Rector of the University, Director of the University Press and its magazine. He is the author of several books and essays on English, American and Portuguese literature, as well as translations and plays. His most recent publications include, in 2015, Uma Admiração Pastoril pelo Diabo (Pessoa & Pascoaes); A Universidade como deve ser, with Miguel Tamen, in 2017; the translation, in 2024, of Shakespeare’s King Lear; and, in 2020, O Cânone, of which he was one of the editors and authors, and where he wrote the essay dedicated to Ruben A.
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Armando Nascimento Rosa
Playwright, essayist and musical creator, author of around thirty dramatic works (including two opera librettos), with stage performances in Europe and America. He is a professor at the Lisbon School of Theatre and Cinema. His research and artistic creation span theatre, philosophy, literature and music, translating into areas such as stage writing and dramaturgical creation; theatre theories and drama hermeneutics; poetic language and musical composition. He has published several books, including criticism on Samuel Beckett, António Patrício, Fernando Pessoa and Natália Correia, whose complete dramatic works he has prepared for publication by INCM. He is the author of the introductory text to the collected dramatic works of Ruben A.
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Artur Santos Silva
Member of the Board of Trustees of the La Caixa Foundation, President of the General Council of the U.Porto and President of the Advisory Council of Foundations. President of the Board of Directors of the Gulbenkian Foundation (2012-2017), he was a visiting professor at FDUC and UCP. He was Director of Banco Português do Atlântico, Secretary of State for the Treasury, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Portugal, Founder and Executive President of SPI/BPI, President of the Board of Directors and Honorary President of BPI. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Serralves Foundation (1996-1998) and President of Porto 2001 European Capital of Culture, President of the Board of Founders of Casa da Música and President of the General Council of UC.
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Dália Dias
PhD in Contemporary Portuguese Literature with a thesis dedicated to the work of Ruben A.. Among her published essays, the monographic study A Escrita Dissidente – Autobiografia de Ruben A., from 2004, stands out. She has made several contributions in the areas of literature promotion, writing workshops and the creation of literary/heritage scripts.
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Emília Nadal
With a degree in painting from the School of Fine Arts, she was awarded a scholarship from the Gulbenkian Foundation in 1974 for research in visual arts. In addition to exhibiting her paintings, she designed liturgical spaces and objects, sets and costumes for theatre and dance. She participated in the collective painting of the two panels celebrating the 25th of April (1974 and 2022). She defended the importance of artistic and aesthetic education for all, areas and disciplines that are essential for the internalisation of knowledge. She was President of the Board and General Assembly of the National Society of Fine Arts, an institution she represented on the National Education Council. She is member of the National Academy of Fine Arts.
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Fernando Pinto do Amaral
Professor at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon, essayist, translator (from Baudelaire to Borges), poet and fiction writer. Author of critical essays such as O Mosaico Fluido — Modernidade e Pós-Modernidade na Poesia Portuguesa Mais Recente (1991) and Na Órbita de Saturno (1992), he published his first collection of short fiction, Contos Suicidas, in 2025. In 2022, he prepared the volume O Essencial sobre Ruben A. for Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda.
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Guilherme d’Oliveira Martins
Executive Director of the Gulbenkian Foundation since 2015. He was President of the National Culture Centre, Minister of the Presidency, Finance and Education, Secretary of State for Educational Administration, Member of Parliament and Vice-President of the Portuguese National Commission for UNESCO. He is a full member of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences, Academic of Merit of the Portuguese Academy of History and has been a Visiting Professor at several higher education institutions. He was President of the Steering Committee of the Council of Europe, which in 2005 drafted the Faro Convention on the value of Cultural Heritage in contemporary society.
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Gustavo Rubim
Professor of Literature at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities of the New University of Lisbon and researcher at the Institute for the Study of Literature and Tradition (IELT). His fields of interest include 19th and 20th century Portuguese literature, literature and anthropology, the history of criticism and literary studies, modern poetry and its theory. He is the author of critical editions and essays, such as the books Experiência da Alucinação: Camilo Pessanha e a questão da poesia and Arte de Sublinhar.
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José Maria Vieira Mendes
Professor and Director of the Theatre and Performance Studies Programme at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon. His interests include performing arts, contemporary art, theatre studies, cultural studies and feminist studies, among others. He has published the book Uma coisa não é outra coisa (2016, second edition revised in 2022) and several books of plays and fiction, many of which have recently been collected in the volume O Pior é que Fica. He is a member of the artistic direction of Teatro Praga.
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Maria Sequeira Mendes
Lecturer in the Literary Theory Programme at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon. Between 2005 and 2017, she taught at the Lisbon Theatre and Film School of the Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon. She was a Beaufort Visiting Scholar at St John’s College, University of Cambridge. Her interests include literary criticism, law and literature, Shakespeare, and theatre. She is co-editor of the criticism and poetry website Jogos Florais. She is the author of the book The Ordeals of Interpretation (2020) and is completing a second study on flattery in Shakespeare.
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Miguel Tamen
Professor and Director of the Programme in Literary Theory at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon, where he was Director until 2024. He is Director of the Gulbenkian Institute for Advanced Studies. His interests include philosophy and literature. He has written and published several books, including Friends of Interpretable Objects (2001, Portuguese translation 2003), What Art Is Like, In Constant Reference to the Alice Books (2012), Closeness (2021, Portuguese translation 2024) and Thinking with Words, with Brett Bourbon (2025); and co-edited O Cânone (2020).
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Pedro Mexia
Poet, chronicler and literary critic, regular contributor to the press, author of several books and responsible for the Tinta-da-China poetry collection, which now has almost 50 titles. He has organised anthologies of Sá de Miranda, Agustina Bessa-Luís, Eduardo Lourenço and Rui Knopfli. He has translated Robert Bresson, Tom Stoppard, Hugo Williams, David Mamet and Martin Crimp. He is the director of Granta in Portuguese. He was deputy director of the Portuguese Film Archive. In 2024, he compiled and reorganised his poetic work in the volume Poemas Reunidos; in 2025, he published the collection of unpublished works Cinquenta, cinquenta.
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Rosa Maria Martelo
Retired professor at the University of Porto, with extensive work dedicated to the study of 20th-century Portuguese literature and its inter-artistic relationships, notably her studies on Carlos de Oliveira and the poetry of the 1960s and 1970s. Author of several books of poetry and essays, including Em parte incerta: estudos de poesia portuguesa moderna e contemporânea, A forma informe, O cinema da poesia, Devagar, a poesia and, in 2025, Herberto Helder áudio/visual e outros estudos entre as artes.
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Sílvia Chicó
An art critic with a distinguished career in art history and curatorship, she is a retired professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon, where she was responsible for creating the Multimedia Art Studies programme. She is President of the General Assembly of the AICA-Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art and was President of the Portuguese Section of the Portuguese Section of the International Association of Art Critics. She has published books on artists such as José Cutileiro and Graça Morais, and has contributed to several catalogues and collective volumes, such as Olhares Mútuos: Sophia e Maria Helena, Bernardo Marques: Momentos Inadiáveis, and 10 Amadores: Desafio de Amadeo aos artistas contemporâneos, compiled for the exhibition held at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s CAM in July 1987.
Programme
10:00 / Welcome
10:15 / Table: Páginas
Saudações em azul e pôr do sol
“Deslizes, inovações, estilo armoriado”
Moderation
— Coffee break 15 min —11:30 / Table: Triálogo
Mas, afinal, o que fazem aqui os "animais domésticos"? Pensar dois bocados sobre o teatro de Ruben A.
“Penas de pássaros ainda não domesticados”. Lendo Triálogo
Teatro Pastoral
Moderation
— Lunch break 120 min —15:00 / Table: O outro que era eu
Ruben A... e o outro...que finca as garras na paisagem...
Prescindir do narrador
Moderation
16:00 / Table: Um deus aos deuses
Um clássico absolutamente moderno
O valor da liberdade em Silêncio para 4
Moderation
— Coffee break 30 min —17:30 / Conference: O autor aborígene
18:00 / Round table: O mundo à sua procura
Moderation
19:00 / Closure
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