The Porto Book Fair Returns to the Palacio de Cristal Gardens for 17 Days, With 144 Stands and 83 Sessions for Children

The Porto Book Fair opens its gates at noon today in the gardens of the Palácio de Cristal, running for 17 days with 144 stands and more than 200 scheduled events. Admission is free.

This is the 13th edition, and it is built around a homage to Inês Lourenço, the 83-year-old poet from Porto. The tribute programme deliberately refuses to stay inside literature, crossing into music, cinema, theatre, dance and the visual arts to offer different readings of her work and her path.

The opening weekend

Tonight at 21:00, in the auditorium of the Biblioteca Almeida Garrett, one of Lourenço's poems on the tragedy of Gaza will be staged as a dramatised reading. On Saturday at 12:00 an exhibition assembled from her personal archive, "Na Lâmina Implacável do Tempo" (In the Implacable Blade of Time), opens; the Tília de Homenagem, the fair's tribute award, is presented at 15:00.

The international line-up is unusually pointed this year. The Palestinian poet and journalist Mohammed El-Kurd takes part in a session titled "Escrita de Resistência: Palestina" (Writing of Resistance: Palestine). The French-Moroccan poet and artist Rim Battal is in conversation with Teresa Coutinho, one of the fair's programmers, on body, identity, writing and performance. The Spanish dramatist Angélica Liddell discusses the role of poetry in her writing and stagecraft. The French novelist Marie Darrieussecq, the Mexican poet Elvis Guerra and the British singer, composer and actor Keeley Forsyth are also billed.

By the numbers

Across the 17 days the organisers have programmed 21 conversations, 20 concerts, seven round tables, seven special sessions, five joint initiatives, eight performances, three exhibitions and one mural intervention. There are daily concerts at the Concha Acústica, the gardens' open-air bandstand.

The strand for younger readers has been expanded this year to 83 sessions totalling 112 hours of activities for babies, children, teenagers and families. The "Ciclos de Conversa" strand takes the fair beyond books into gender-based violence, ancestry and identity, and writing as a form of resistance.

Practical notes

The fair occupies the Jardins do Palácio de Cristal, the hillside gardens above the Douro crowned by the domed Pavilhão Rosa Mota. It is a working city park rather than a conference venue: paths are steep in places, shade is plentiful, and the views over the river are among the best in Porto. Entry to the fair is free, though individual ticketed events within the programme are possible.

What this means for you

• Non-Portuguese speakers are not shut out. Concerts, exhibitions, the mural intervention and much of the children's programming need no Portuguese at all, and several of the invited writers work in English, French or Spanish.
• Families get the best value. With 83 sessions aimed at babies through teenagers and free entry, this is one of the cheapest sustained cultural offerings in the north this summer.
• Buying books: 144 stands means Portuguese publishers of every size, and Portuguese-language editions are typically well below UK or US cover prices.
• Getting there: the gardens sit above the Miragaia and Massarelos slopes, an uphill walk from the riverside. Bus lines serving Rua de Dom Manuel II drop you at the gate.

Porto's fair has grown into something closer to a 17-day festival that happens to sell books, which is a different proposition from the traditional Portuguese feira do livro. For readers who arrived in the city with no Portuguese and a suspicion that its literary life happens behind closed doors, this is the fortnight it comes outdoors. Our weekly Porto Brief will follow the programme as it unfolds.