Literature and moving images to be presented in Nicosia

One of the greatest living Cuban writers Leonardo Padura is travelling to Cyprus this summer for the first time to take part in a series of events about the art of literature and fiction. Joining him is the acclaimed director Lucia López Coll.

The Literature in Athens (LEA) Festival is the platform on which Iberia (Spain and Portugal), Latin America and Greece meet, dedicating time and space to culture, literature, visual arts, cinema and theatre. Through a rich events agenda, the public has the opportunity to get to know the richness of these countries and this June, Cyprus is part of them too.

The Athens festival extends to our corner of the Mediterranean as it collaborates with the Cyprus-based Ideogramma, the embassies of Spain and Cuba and the Institutes Cervantes in Athens and Cyprus. The LEA in Cyprus 2025 agenda will be a two-day event dedicated to the craft of writing and translating text into moving images.

On Thursday at Soloneion Book Centre, Padura will converse with Cypriot journalist and writer Stavros Christodoulou in an event titled Between Memory and Fiction: the Universe of Leonardo Padura.

“Leonardo Padura has built, between chronicles, detective novels and history, a literary universe where individual and collective memory is interconnected,” say organisers. “In this conversation, Padura will reflect on his work, the boundaries between reality and fiction, and the role of the writer as a witness of his times. This dialogue reveals how literature can be a reflection between cultures, a mirror of the soul and history.”

Four Seasons in Havana

On the following evening, his wife Coll will take the floor to share with Cyprus audiences how a novel can be transformed for the screen. At the From the Book to the Script of a TV Series: The Challenges of Digital Platforms event at bookshop To Erma, Coll, the screenwriter of the mini-series Four Seasons in Havana based on Padura’s work, and Stavros Pampallis, a Cypriot film director and screenwriter, will talk about the creative and cultural challenges of adapting a literary work for the digital platform.

Following the discussion, the fourth episode (Paisaje de Otoño) of the 2017 Spanish mini-series will be screened. The series had its world premiere on Netflix, was nominated for the Fénix Awards for Best Drama Series and Best Actor Cast, and won the Platinum Award for Best Ibero-American Miniseries or TV Series of that year.

LEA in Cyprus 2025

Roundtable discussion with acclaimed Cuban writer Leonardo Padura and Cypriot journalist Stavros Christodoulou. June 19. Soloneion Book Centre, Nicosia, 7.30pm. Discussion and film screening with renowned Cuban screenwriter Lucia López Coll and Cypriot film director Stavros Pampallis. June 20. Bookshop To Erma, Nicosia. 7.30pm. Free. Tel: 99-678132