The Literary Festival In the name of the Earth, from 1 to 5 October in the village of Melo, in the municipality of Gouveia, celebrates Vergílio Ferreira with books, music, photography, illustration or performance, today revealed the locality.
© Global Images
16/09/2026
by
Lusa
In the Name of the Earth
“ It will be five days to read the world from the perspective and the interartistic dimension of Vergílio Ferreira's writing [1916-1996], with emphasis on the revisitation of Na Tua Face, one of the last novels of the author ", He told the municipality in a communiqué sent to the agency Lusa.
In the name of the Earth is promoted by the House of Gouveia, in the district of Guarda, in the village of Melo, where Vergílio Ferreira was born and is buried (1916-1996), and emerged to celebrate “the relationship between literature and the territory that inspires it”.
Talks with writers, sessions on literature and territory, presentations of books, exhibitions and artistic installations, performances and story time, artistic residences, music and poetry and training actions are scheduled.
The fifth edition of the festival will feature about 50 guests from different areas, generations and geographies, including Brazil, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique and Spain.
These include Bruno Nogueira, Filipe Melo, Teolinda Gersão, Afonso Cruz, Ana Markl, Isabel do Carmo, Rui Cardoso Martins, Rodrigo Leão and Ana Paula Tavares.
Itamar Vieira Júnior, David Uclés, Isabel Zambujal, Mafalda Veiga, Nuno Severino Teixeira, Marisa Matias, Patrícia Reis, Ana Barbara Pedrosa and Henrique Raposo are other names already confirmed.
The festival opens on October 1 with the inauguration of the photographic exhibition On Your Face, Rita Courtesy, and the poetic installation If these clothes spoke of Bernardo Mendonça.
The first night ends with Apparition, show by Luís Osório on the work and life of Vergílio Ferreira.
On day 02, the highlight goes to Bruno Nogueira and Filipe Melo, who are in the Chapel of Mercy, from 18:30, for a moderate session of Ana Markl.
The concert will also be held that night In the name of the Earth, Rodrigo Leão, created purposely for the festival, which will cross music, literature, memory and landscape around the novelist's work.
For October 3, artistic residences are scheduled, an itinerant performance by the houses of Melo, hours of the tale, literary paths, a workshop of illustrations, a poetic performance, a literary dinner and a night of poetry at Quinta das Cegonhas.
The following day five books will be presented and the Literary Award Vergílio Ferreira, in the test category, will be presented to Italian researcher Marcella Petriglia.
Established by the House of Gouveia in honor of the writer, the award was awarded to the Portuguese and Brazilian language teacher at the University of Florence for the essay “In a labyrinth led by a rhythm: spaces and times of eugenic writing”.
The cooperation protocol between the House of Gouveia and the University of Beira Interior (UBI) in Covilhã will also be signed, with a view to the creation of the Chair Vergílio Ferreira.
In the afternoon the street Teolinda Gersão, in Melo, will be inaugurated in honor of the writer.
The festival will end on October 5th with a guided tour of the exhibition The Portrait as a Sismograph: Vasco de Castro Revisited and a round table around the artist's work at the Municipal Museum of Modern Art Abel Manta in Gouveia.
The festival has free entry in general activities.