READING IS A CLANDESTINE ACT: WHY BOOKS CAN SAVE US
Wednesday, 21 October 2026, 6:30 pm
Centre Cultural La Nau, Universitat de València – Aula Magna
Lecture by Servando Rocha, editor, writer and essayist
Post-lecture discussion with Raúl Abeledo Sanchis
SUMMARY
Books are objects of power, and reading is a dissident act in a world that rewards immediacy, the ephemeral, the spectral—and stupidity. Attention has become something that must be consciously cultivated.
For writer and editor Servando Rocha, literature is both a way of life and a practice of resistance, where wandering the streets, “wasting” time, the city as a counter-map, imagination and silence can bring us back to the present—the only place from which the impossible can be imagined.
BIOGRAPHY
SERVANDO ROCHA (Canary Islands, 1974) is a writer and the founding editor of La Felguera Editores (www.lafelguera.net). For more than three decades, he has explored radical forms of artistic expression and dissent, with a particular focus on memory, psychogeography and the hidden history of our time. A specialist in avant-garde movements and counterculture, he has written about motorcycle gangs, activists, secret societies and criminals in more than a dozen books, several of which have been published in France and Italy. His notable works include La Facción Caníbal. Historia del vandalismo ilustrado, El ejército negro. Un bestiario oculto de América, Algunas cosas oscuras y peligrosas. El libro de la máscara y los enmascarados, Todo el odio que tenía dentro and De fuego cercada. Geografía secreta de Madrid. His latest book is Este corazón que sangra. William S. Burroughs & Kiki en Tánger (Alianza Editorial, 2026). He has appeared at leading international festivals, including the Occulture Conference (Berlin, 2022), and has written forewords for authors such as Alan Moore, Hakim Bey, Jon Savage, William S. Burroughs, Iain Sinclair and Aleister Crowley, among others. He also hosts the Brutalistas podcast.
ORGANISED BY
Observatori Cultural de la Universitat de València
