Shakespeare and Cervantes

To commemorate the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s and Miguel de Cervantes’ deaths in 2016, the British Council, the Hay Festival and Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) have selected twelve contemporary international writers to write an original and previously unpublished story as their tribute to these giants of world literature. The result is the new anthology Lunatics, Lovers and Poets: Twelve Stories after Shakespeare and Cervantes published in an English version by And Other Stories and in Spanish by Galaxia Gutenberg.

In order to celebrate the international influence of each writer, the six English-speaking writers offer a take on Cervantes and his work, while six contemporary Spanish-language writers have written stories inspired by Shakespeare. The writers are Kamila Shamsie; Ben Okri; Deborah Levy; Yuri Herrera; Marcos Giralt Torrente; Juan Gabriel Vásquez; Vicente Molina Foix; Soledad Puértolas; Hisham Matar; Nell Leyshon; Rhidian Brook and Valeria Luiselli, with an introduction by Salman Rushdie.

Throughout 2016 there will be a series of talks, readings and panel discussions at literary events around the world that will consider the cultural significance of these two major European writers occasioned by this exciting new publication. There will also be wraparound intellectual discussion events throughout 2016 exploring comparisons between these and perhaps look into the cultural custodianship of these writers, attempting to ascertain where they sit in the contemporary consciousness.

Timeline of Events

January 2016

• Deborah Levy and Nell Leyshon in conversation with Daniel Hahn at the Hay Festival Cartagena de Indias, Colombia

April 2016

• 7 April - Launch of the Spanish version of the anthology with Marcos Giralt Torrente, Vicente Molina Foix and Nell Leyshon at the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid, Spain. Watch a video of the discussion here. 

• 12 April - Launch of the English version of the anthology with Vicente Molina Foix, Deborah Levy and Ben Okri, chaired by Daniel Hahn at the British Library, London, UK.

May 2016

• 1 May - Readings and discussions with Nell Leyshon at the Bocas Lit Fest in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. See the programme of the Bocas Lit Fest and read a blog post by Nell Leyshon about her story Glass

• 1 May - Launch of the anthology with Kamila Shamsie, Juan Gabriel Vásquez and Marcos Giralt Torrente at the Bogota Book Fair (Filbo), Colombia. 

• 28-29 May - Readings and discussions with Rhidian Brook, Vicente Molina Foix, Yuri Herrera, Nell Leyshon, Valeria Luiselli, Ben Okri, Salman Rushdie, Kamila Shamsie, Marcos Giralt Torrente and Juan Gabriel Vasquez at Hay Festival in Hay-on-Wye, Wales. See the full programme for the Hay Festival. 

September 2016

• 1-4 September - Readings and discussions with anthology writers at the Hay Festival Querétaro, Mexico.

• 22-25 September - Readings and discussions with anthology writers at the Hay Festival Segovia, Spain. 

November 2016

• Readings and discussions with anthology writers at the Hay Festival Arequipa, Peru.