Sergi Belbel

Invitado de Honor

Sergi Belbel is an author, translator and theatre director. 
His written works include Minim.mal Show (authored with Miquel Górriz, 1986), Elsa Scnheider (1989), Tàlem (1990), Carícies (1991), Després de la pluja (1993), Morir (1994), La sang (1998), El temps de Planck (2000), Forasters (2004), Mòbil (2005), A la Toscana (2007), Fora de joc (2010), Les roses de la vida (2017), Si no t’hagués conegut (2018), Angle mort (2020), co-written with Roc Esquius, Hamlet.01 (2022), Lali Symon (2023) and Hamlet.02 (2024). Most of these pieces have been seen in countries across Europe and America and, in some cases, on other continents.
He has directed plays by Benet i Jornet, Guimerà, Shakespeare, Molière, Racine, Goldoni, Calderón, J.B. Priestley, Mamet, Jardiel and more. Some of his pieces have been adapted to the silver screen by Ventura Pons (Carícies, Morir o no, Forasters) and Agustí Villaronga (Després de la pluja, a film for television). Belbel co-wrote the script for the films Eva, by Kike Maíllo (2011), and Stella Cadente (2014) and Love me not (2018), directed by Lluís Miñarro.
His accolades include the National Catalan Literature Award (1993–95), the Ministry of Culture’s National Dramatic Literature Award (1996), the Government of Catalonia’s National Theatre Award (2000), the Max Award for international reach (2002) and the City of Barcelona Award (2003).
In December 2021, he won the Sant Jordi Award for novels with Morir-ne disset (Proa), his first foray into prose fiction. In 2024, he published his second novel: Acte de fe (Proa).

Other activities involving the participant:

Of families, happy and unhappy in their own way

Victoria Szpunberg

Invitado de Honor

Victoria Szpunberg is a playwright, director and dramaturgy teacher. She was invited to the Royal Court Theatre International Residency in 2000 with her first play.
Since then, her works have premièred at numerous national and international festivals and theatres. Her plays have been translated into more than ten languages. Alongside her career as a writer, she has partnered with various choreographers, developed dramaturgies, directed and adapted plays and written pieces for radio and sound installations. She has also taken part in theatre and education projects. In 2013, she received the Max Prize for Catalan Playwriting. In 2019, she was playwright-in-residence at Sala Beckett with the play Amor mundi (Festival Grec 2019) and won the VII SGAE Laboratory Fellowship to write Tu hija (Your Daughter). In 2022, she premièred the opera libretto La gata perduda (The Lost Cat) (Gran Teatro del Liceo, winner of the Serra d’Or Prize, Max Prize, Teatre Barcelona Prize, among others), and that same year also premièred El peso de un cuerpo (The Weight of a Body) (TNC and CDN). In 2023, she premièred her play Mal de coraçon (Heartache) (Cia Solitària, TNC), and in 2024 L’imperatiu categòric (The Categorical Imperative) (Teatre Lliure 2024–2025), a work that received the City of Barcelona Prize, the Butaca Prize, the Time Out Award for Best Creator of the Year and the Critics’ Prize for Best Text, among others. This year she has premièred Vulcano (Volcano) (CDN) and La tercera fuga (The Third Escape) (Sala Gran, TNC).

Other activities involving the participant:

Barcelona today: a transformation
Presentation of Babelia

Marta Buchaca

Invitado de Honor

Playwright, director and screenwriter. Her most recent works include Kramig (Espai Texas, 2025), Quant de temps em queda? (Teatre Goya, 2022), Rita (La Villarroel, 2022; Centre Cultural Fernán Gómez, 2021, and Sala Beckett, 2019), Playoff, which premièred in February 2018 at the Conde Duque Theatre in Madrid with La Joven Compañía, and Només una vegada, which premièred at the Festival Grec 2018 and the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya.
 Some of her other noteworthy plays are Les nenes no haurien de jugar a futbol (Festival Grec and Versus Teatre, 2009, and Teatros del Canal, 2014), Losers (La Villarroel, 2014, and Teatro Bellas Artes, 2015) and Plastilina (Sala Beckett, 2009). Her family plays, meanwhile, include an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland and La nit dels malsons, for the Auditori de Barcelona’s Cantània project. 
She has received a host of literary awards, most notably the Max Award for best writing in Catalan and the City of Alcoy Award.
Her screenplays include Fenómenas and El juego de las llaves, as well as the adaptations of her plays Només una vegada, Litus and Les nenes no haurien de jugar a futbol. 

She has also published a novel, Sis mesos d’hivern (Ed. Navona).

Other activities involving the participant:

Writing about love (and heartbreak)

Josep Maria Miró

Invitado de Honor

Author of The Monster (2023, XXXII Jardiel Poncela Prize / XVIII Quim Masó Prize), Me, Trans (2023, VII Teatre Barcelona Prize – Local Musical Show), Remains of the Glowing Night (2021), La Majordoma (The Lady Butler) (2020), The Nicest Body Ever Seen Around These Parts (2020, National Prize for Dramatic Literature 2022 / XLV Born Prize / XXV Critics’ Prize), The White Room (2020), Temps salvatge (Wild Times) (2017, XXII Max Prize for Authorship), Olvidémonos de ser turistas (Let’s Forget about Being Tourists) (2017), Cúbit (Ulna) (2016), La travessia (The Passage) (2015, Frederic Roda Prize – XLV Night of Catalan Literature), Obac (Shady) (2014), Estripar la terra (Tearing Up the Earth) (2013,
Autor Exprés Prize), Fum (Smoke) (2012), Nerium Park (2012, Jaume Vidal i Alcover Prize / VI Quim Masó Prize), El principi d’Arquimedes (Archimedes’ Principle) (2011, XXXVI Born Prize), Gang Bang (2010, Project T6 Teatre Nacional de Catalunya), La dona que perdia tots els avions (The Woman Who Always Missed Her Flight) (2009, XXXIV Born Prize 2009) and stage adaptations such as Sicalíptiques (2024), Reis del món (Kings of the World) (2023), Els homes i els dies (The Men and the Days) (2022), L’amic retrobat (The Recovered Friend) (2019), Neus Català (2015), Esperança dinamita (Dynamite Hope) (2015) and Com si entrés en una pàtria (As If I Entered a Homeland) (2010). His work has been translated into more than twenty languages and has done over one hundred premières worldwide. He is currently working on the final monologue in the Tríptic de l’epifania (Triptych of the Epiphany), a new original text for the 2026–2027 season, and an adaptation of Eloy Moreno’s novel Invisible for the company La Joven. Next year will see the first English-language première of one of his plays off-Broadway in New York.

Other activities involving the participant:

Barcelona today: a transformation

Xavier Mas Craviotto

Invitado de Honor

Xavier Mas Craviotto, born in Navàs in 1996, studied Catalan language and literature and completed a postgraduate degree programme in Linguistic Consultancy and Publishing Services at the University of Barcelona. He is currently working as a teacher of Catalan language and culture at Bristol University, in the United Kingdom, and as an editor. He is one of the co-founders of Com ho diria, a digital platform devoted to Catalan youth slang. In addition to the novel La mort lenta (Documenta Award 2018), he has published the poetry collections Renills de cavall negre (Salvador Iborra Young Art Award 2018), La gran nàusea and La llum subterrània (Ausiàs March Award 2022). In total, he has won around 20 literary prizes for prose and poetry and has taken part in some collective short story anthologies. La pell del món is his second novel.

Maria Canelles

Invitado de Honor

Maria Canelles Trabal, born in Barcelona in 1988, has always been connected to the world of culture, specifically to literature and the visual arts, but also to theatre. She works in cultural management and, since December 2021, has been the co-director of the Fundació Joan Brossa – Centre de les Arts Lliures, a space focused on experimental poetry and projects that straddle the visual arts and live arts. She studied humanities, literary theory and comparative literature, in addition to earning a master’s degree in theatre studies. In 2016 she and Adrià Aubert co-wrote the theatrical adaptation of the Pere Calders novel Ronda naval sota la boira, earning them a nomination for the Catalan Critics’ Award for Best Adaptation. Texts of hers have appeared in fiction anthologies (Grand Hotel, Univers 2022) and group dramatised readings (Estar bé, a reading led by Glòria Balañà at the Sala Beckett, 2017). In September 2022, she published her first novel, Contra la nostàlgia, with Angle Editorial (2 editions). This novel was shortlisted for the Finestres Award for Catalan Fiction in the same year.

Other activities involving the participant:

Tribute to Joan Brossa. Poetry, politics, and nonconformity
Conquering the blank page: The first novel

Sergi Belbel

Invitado de Honor

Sergi Belbel is an author, translator and theatre director. 
His written works include Minim.mal Show (authored with Miquel Górriz, 1986), Elsa Scnheider (1989), Tàlem (1990), Carícies (1991), Després de la pluja (1993), Morir (1994), La sang (1998), El temps de Planck (2000), Forasters (2004), Mòbil (2005), A la Toscana (2007), Fora de joc (2010), Les roses de la vida (2017), Si no t’hagués conegut (2018), Angle mort (2020), co-written with Roc Esquius, Hamlet.01 (2022), Lali Symon (2023) and Hamlet.02 (2024). Most of these pieces have been seen in countries across Europe and America and, in some cases, on other continents.
He has directed plays by Benet i Jornet, Guimerà, Shakespeare, Molière, Racine, Goldoni, Calderón, J.B. Priestley, Mamet, Jardiel and more. Some of his pieces have been adapted to the silver screen by Ventura Pons (Carícies, Morir o no, Forasters) and Agustí Villaronga (Després de la pluja, a film for television). Belbel co-wrote the script for the films Eva, by Kike Maíllo (2011), and Stella Cadente (2014) and Love me not (2018), directed by Lluís Miñarro.
His accolades include the National Catalan Literature Award (1993–95), the Ministry of Culture’s National Dramatic Literature Award (1996), the Government of Catalonia’s National Theatre Award (2000), the Max Award for international reach (2002) and the City of Barcelona Award (2003).
In December 2021, he won the Sant Jordi Award for novels with Morir-ne disset (Proa), his first foray into prose fiction. In 2024, he published his second novel: Acte de fe (Proa).

Other activities involving the participant:

Barcelona opens the curtain!
Barcelona opens the curtain!

Carlota Gurt

Invitado de Honor

Carlota Gurt, born in Barcelona in 1976, has been a translator for more than ten years, and in another life, she worked as a producer for the theatre company La Fura dels Baus and the Festival Temporada Alta. She juggles her real life and her literary life and contributes to various media outlets. Her work includes the short story collection Cavalcarem tota la nit (2019 Mercè Rodoreda Award) and the novel Sola (2020), both of which have been translated into several languages. In 2023, she published the short story collection Biografia del foc.

Other activities involving the participant:

From where one writes
Praise (from Barcelona) for the story
Annual International Storytellers Conference