Conversations with writers and artists to start the course with Alumni UV

  • UV General Foundation
  • October 3rd, 2024
 
The writer Alfons Cervera (in the middle) talks with the Quixote Reading Club of Alumni UV
The writer Alfons Cervera (in the middle) talks with the Quixote Reading Club of Alumni UV

Alumni UV, the group of friends and alumni of la Universitat de València, starts the academic year this October with a program that recovers the already consolidated reading clubs in Valencian (TIRANT) and Spanish (QUIJOTE) and proposes an exclusive visit to the workshop of the painter Josep Esteve Adam in Algemesí, where you can also contemplate the Ribalta of the Basilica of Sant Jaume Apòstol.

The program of activities began this week with a gathering with the Valencian writer Alfons Cerver at the Quixote Reading Club QUIJOTE The group talked at the Centre Cultural La Nau with the author about his latest book, 'El boxeador' (Piel de Zapa, 2024), a post-war story through which he insists on the need to “tell” so that the word is not the same as silence. “I have said it and written it many times: what we do not tell is as if it had not existed,” he said. And in 'El boxeador', Cervera pays tribute to written memory: “The final question is: if we do not write so that oblivion, fear and silence disappear from our lives, what the hell do we write for?

The Quixote Reading Club reading Club will end in 2024 with readings of the novels 'A Terrible Greenery' by Benjamin Labatut on November 5 and 'The Sky is Blue, the Earth is White' by Hiromi Kawakami on December 10. The later, the great Japanese love story that has marked a landmark in contemporary literature, winner of the prestigious Tanizaki Prize.

The club meetings take place in the Sala Gonzalo Montiel of the Centre Cultural La Nau UV at 18pm, and to join the club you only have to register here

Elvira Cambrils, at the TIRANT
Reading Club The second activity of the month corresponds to the TIRANT Reading Club in Valencian, which will have the visit of the author, the writer from Alicante Elvira Cambrils, to analyze and discuss her novel 'Argila i Calç' (Bromera, 2023). It will be held on Monday, 14 October, also at La Nau (6 p.m.).

Enric Valor Prize for novels in Valencian in 2022, 'Argila i Calç' is presented structured in a double narrative line that are the two personal stories of the two main female protagonists, Amina Hodan and Blanca Miralles. In this way, the plot is shaped like a puzzle where, excerpt by excerpt, the current daily life and the historical portrait of their lives are configured and combined, as well as the lives of the people they love who pass through their surroundings.

As in previous novels, Elvira Cambrils is convinced that brave and fighting women deserve the reward of reconciliation with life, and proposes a joie de vivre full of hope and harmony to overcome the obstacles.

Elvira Cambrils (Pego, 1955) is a Valencian narrator and novelist. Graduated in Philosophy from la Universitat de València, she obtained the professorship of Philosophy in Spanish upper secondary school education in 1981 and taught in Valencian secondary schools until 2015. She is the author of several novels, and has written a significant volume of publications, both narrative and short stories, which has allowed her to receive several literary awards.

The TIRANT Club has already advanced the readings for the 2024-25 course which will be: 'La promesa' (Les hores, 2022) by Damon Galgut next December 9; 'Les calces al sol' (La Campana, 2023) by Regina Rodríguez Sirvent on February 3, 2025; 'Els nens són reis' (Ed 62, 2022) by Delphine de Vigan on April 7; and 'La colònia' (Ed. del Periscopi, 2024) by Audrey Magee on June 2.

If you want to join the TIRANT Club, enter here

The workshop of the painter Esteve Adam and the Ribalta of the Basilica of Algemesí
It will close the October activities the cultural visit to Algemesí on the morning of the 25th (Friday). Within the free program Alumni Comparteix, by initiative of the same members of the collective, and with the title 'Tradition and present in Algemesí', there will be an outing guided by the Alumni Joan Vicent Esteve to the workshop of the painter Josep Esteve Adam, from which they will then approach the Basilica of Sant Jaume Apòstol to contemplate the Ribalta que treasures the temple.

It is a very interesting proposal: in addition to the visit to the painter Esteve Adam in his studio -he paints contemporary Valencian landscape, from my point of view, very attractive-, we will go to see the Ribalta of the Basilica that have a great pictorial quality. We will see the ones on the main altar and also the ones they have in storage,” said the UV Alumni Office.

Josep Esteve was born in Algemesí (La Ribera) in 1946 and his first artistic training was with the local sculptor Leonardo Borràs After a period devoted to agriculture, he graduated in Fine Arts, where he was taught by professors such as Felipe Garín, Francesc Lozano, Lluís Arcas and Josep Amérigo, among others. In 1973 he won the landscape scholarship at El Paular, in Segovia, and later his gaze became steeped in the work of painters from all over the world. This has meant that in the end Esteve Adam's work has become a work with a very personal language.

A secondary school teacher, he has been able to combine teaching with artistic creation. His work consists of still lifes, portraits and, especially, landscapes, and has been recognised with various awards over the last few decades.

You can register for this free activity from 7 October on this link

More information: