Barcelona recovers this May one of its most literary events. The festival En otras palabras returns to CaixaForum with the aim of taking literature off the shelves and bringing it to the realm of dialogue, workshops, and spectacle. For two weeks, the cultural center will transform into a space for exchange in which prominent literary figures such as Julian Barnes, David Uclés, and Marta Orriols will participate.
CaixaForum proposes a cycle where the word acts as an axis to unite disciplines that are often separated: narrative, poetry, music, and debate. Its program is very diverse and includes everything from poetic "tardeos" to literary workshops to improve narrative technique.
Julian Barnes within the program of En otras palabras
On Tuesday, May 12, the city of Barcelona will welcome one of the most anticipated guests this edition: Julian Barnes. He is a benchmark in contemporary literature whose style is characterized by clarity, irony, and a great capacity to analyze human psychology.In 2011, he won the Man Booker Prize for The Sense of an Ending and, since then, he has built a critically acclaimed career that includes works such as Flaubert's Parrot and England, England. His visit to Barcelona coincides with the publication of his new book, Farewells (2026), where he deals with recurring themes in his bibliography: the fragility of memory, the passage of time, and the difficulty of establishing an absolute truth about the past.
Within the framework of the festival In Other Words, the author will star in a meeting with the writer and journalist Lucía Lijtmaer in which he will dissect his technique, marked by a constant interplay between fiction and essay, and his vision on how literature helps to manage endings.
David Uclés is the new voice of historical memory
David Uclés is shaking up Spanish literatureand, precisely for that reason, on Thursday, May 14,the festival puts the focus on his figure. He has been awarded the 82nd Nadal AwardbyThe City of Dead Lights, a novel that invites us to look at history from angles no one else dares to use. His previous work,The peninsula of empty houses, it has already earned him critical recognition for his way of approaching history from a multidisciplinary perspective (and he is, in addition to a writer, also a musician and cartoonist).Under the title "A Night of Times in Barcelona", David Uclés will converse with Jordi Amat (philologist and a great essayist of current Catalonia) about how the identity of a city is built through books. The session will analyze the dangers that threaten Barcelona's cultural fabric, such as gentrification and mass tourism, and will vindicate the role of literature in reactivating collective memory.
Marta Orriols' literary workshop at CaixaForum
Another of the most notable encounters of In other wordsinvites us to enter a writer's workshop.On Saturday, May 16, writer Marta Orriols will lead a writing workshop that will teach us how character construction is carried out.Orriols has become an essential voice in current Catalan literature with works such as Aprendre a parlar amb les plantes (Òmnium Prize) or La possibilitat de dir-ne casa. Her style is defined by observing human behavior in a very detailed way and, also, by knowing how to narrate from emotional containment.
In the workshop "Creating convincing characters", the writer will explain how to give psychological depth to a protagonist, how to organize the dramatic hierarchy of a plot, and what tools are necessary for a character to be believable.
The grand finale: Shakespeare with Emma Vilarasau and Jordi Bosch
The closing of the festival, theTuesday, May 19,is reserved for one of the most powerful shows in the program: a dramatized recital of William Shakespeare's poem Venus and Adonis.This event stands out for its text and its interpreters: Emma Vilarasau and Jordi Bosch will be in charge of bringing to life one of the most sensual poems by the English author.This recital takes us back to the years 1592 and 1593, when an epidemic of bubonic plague forced all London theaters to close. In that forced isolation, Shakespeare decided to take refuge in poetry to seek the patronage and prestige that the popular theater of the time did not offer him. Thus, the poem Venus and Adonis was born as a survival strategy, but ended up becoming the greatest editorial success of his career, as it is his most reissued work during his lifetime.
This literary encounter features the accompaniment on the cello by Lluís Claret, an internationally renowned musician who has been awarded prizes in competitions such as the Pau Casals and the Rostropovich.
Emma Vilarasau and Jordi Bosch will be in charge of bringing to life one of the most sensual poems by the English author.
The festival opts for a multidisciplinary program
Beyond these encounters, In other wordsoffers a very varied program suitable for all audiences. On Wednesday 13, Josep Pedrals and Xavi Lloses present El batec,a show that dissects the world of poetic recitals from a metalinguistic perspective.On the other hand, the "tardeo" and poetic vermouth formats offer us a more relaxed type of encounter: on Friday 15, Irene Pujadas and Joan Pons Villaró (El Petit de Cal Eril) will talk about the value of boredom; on Saturday 16, Lorena Álvarez and Lucía Lijtmaer will debate about the artistic "trance": that moment when the creator loses control to let the work take over.
An appointment with words at CaixaForum
The 2026 edition of the festival In other wordsat CaixaForum is an essential event for the city's most literary minds. Julian Barnes, David Uclés, and Marta Orriols will be some of those in charge of reclaiming the word as the best tool to understand who we are and where we are going.Add The New Barcelona Post as your preferred Google source for free
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