Writer Conceição Evaristo has already participated in several editions of the Festa Literária das Periferias (Flup), in Rio de Janeiro, but this year, in the 15th edition, it will be in a different way. One of the most important voices in contemporary literature is the first personality honored, during his lifetime, by the festival. 
For the director, general curator and creator of Flup, Julio Ludemir, in honoring the author, Flup “recognizes writing as a political and poetic gesture, capable of re-enchanting the world through black and peripheral voices”.
In recent years, in the 2024 edition of Flup, the honoree was the historian, researcher and activist, Beatriz Nascimento; in 2023, the writer Machado de Assis and Mãe Beata de Iemanjá, writer and priestess of a sacred without a Bible, founder of the Candomblé terreiro Ilê Axé Omiojuarô, in Miguel Couto, in Baixada Fluminense; in 2022, the chosen one was the composer and musician Pixinguinha; in a hybrid virtual and in-person format; in 2021, the composer and musician Aldir Blanc; and in 2020, there was another double tribute, to the anthropologist, activist and writer, Lélia Gonzalez and the writer, singer, composer and poet Carolina Maria de Jesus.
“We don’t leave the semantic field of the homages and tributes that we make, but we never dared to honor an author during his lifetime. We proposed this challenge to Conceição by honoring an author during his lifetime, which brings a much greater responsibility, of sharing with Conceição any and all ideas, so that we can honor and celebrate her, because both she and we accept this challenge”, says Ludemir.
For the director, the history of the Literary Festival is a bit the history of Conceição. “The growth and visibility that Flup has had in recent years, minimally interacts with the same public, with the same Brazil as Conceição Evaristo, which has been growing consistently year after year, month after month, week after week, day by day, every second a new reader of Conceição Evaristo appears”, said Ludemir to Brazil Agency.
He also said that the writer’s choice at the same time pays homage to the Brazil of affirmative actions, quotas, which is becoming desensitized, mainly due to public policy.
“Nowhere have affirmative actions had such a broad and rapid impact as in Brazil. We have a new intellectuality, we have a new artistic class and no one represents this better than Conceição Evaristo. Paying homage to Conceição Evaristo is honoring her work, her activism, her biography, but both her work, her activism and her biography, are so relevant precisely because they dialogue with this popular Brazil, with black women, with this Brazil that permanently produces utopias”, analyzed the creator from Flup.
“When you are tired, look at a pregnant black woman and you will see that there is a future. A people who were enslaved, who had all the history that black people have and who are a people who never stopped looking to the future, never stopped believing almost in this biblical thing about grow and multiply”, he highlighted.
According to Ludemir, when you pay homage to Conceição, you are “seeing in her the voice, the body, the trajectory, the work, of this new Brazil, of this Brazil that continues to be more homophobic, more transphobic, that kills more women, but on the other hand, this Conceição Evaristo phenomenon does not exist around the world”.
“She produced and produces a work, which nowadays occupies in the Brazilian imagination, the same place that Jorge Amado occupied, of touching people’s hearts. When you read every comma of Conceição, you have the feeling that you are coming into immediate contact with the history of Brazil, with everyday life”, he added.
Rio de Janeiro (RJ), 10/28/2025 – To Julio Ludemir, Conceição Evaristo produced and produces a work, which today occupies in the Brazilian imagination, the same place as Jorge Amado occupied. Photo: Hildemar Tercero/Disclosure – Hildemar Tercero/Disclosure
According to the creator of Flip, in addition to this scenario, Conceição also manages to “produce and touch the key to love in a way that few people in the history of Brazil do, it is reflected in the children, in the black women who adore the writer and in the people who want to touch and take photos with her”.
“It’s not a fan thing, it’s something to see in Conceição Evaristo. When we honor Conceição, we are honoring Brazil, this country that went through dictatorships and managed to get out of dictatorships. We are honoring the country that condemned Bolsonaro, which the United States did not do. We are honoring the history of a people who never gave up on the possibility of creating a better country for their children”, he pointed out.
Schedule
With the theme Ideas to Re-Enchant the World: Writings, Dreams and Beats, Flup 2025 will take place between the 19th and 23rd and 27th and 30th of November, at Viaduto de Madureira, in Central Única das Favelas (CUFA), which among other activities, hosts on the first weekend, the Literary Festival of Racial Equality (FLIIR), with tables and workshops dedicated to the appreciation of black and indigenous literature. Another venue is Zê êne, which hosts the semi-finals of Slam BR, the Brazilian Slam Poetry Championship, holding two intense spoken word poetry contests: the first from 7pm to 9pm, and the second from 9:30pm to 11:30pm.
On the second weekend, Zê Êne will host activities from partner publishers and CUFA will have a special exhibition dedicated to British filmmaker Steve McQueen. All this in the Madureira neighborhood, north of Rio.
Touted as one of the most relevant literary festivals in Brazil and a meeting place for the word, the body and the territory, Flup “celebrates the strength of imagination and writing as practices of resistance and symbolic reconstruction”.
The program for the 15th edition of Flup brings together authors, artists and thinkers from Brazil, Africa, the Caribbean, North America and Europe. In addition to Conceição Evaristo, who will participate in every day of the party, Achille Mbembe, Ana Maria Gonçalves, Mireille Fanon Mendès-France, Eliana Alves Cruz, Steve McQueen among others. Performances by Sandra Sá, Mano Brown, Luedji Luna, Jonathan Ferr and Majur are already scheduled for the shows.
The international curation, repeating what happened last year, is signed by French-Senegalese professor and researcher Mame-Fatou Niang, who defines, based on her presence at Flup, as surprising and challenging, understanding the black presence in Brazilian culture.
Rio de Janeiro (RJ), 10/28/2025 – The international curatorship of Flup is by French-Senegalese researcher Mame-Fatou Niangr.. Photo: Hildemar Tercero/Disclosure – Hildemar Tercero/Disclosure
“For me, Brazil is a mystery. I grew up watching soap operas, loving Pelé, football and Carnival in February, but I didn’t know that Brazil was a black country, because that’s not what is shown”, he commented in a text released by Flup.
France- Brazil
Included in the programming of the France-Brazil cultural season, Flup assumes a central role, strengthening the commitment as “a space for exchange between peripheral knowledge, ancestral languages, music and traditions that cross time and territories”.
“France, the French Institute and the French embassy have been our most present partners in the history of Flup. In all the years we have had the support of France. In the worst years of our life, even at the height of Bolsonarism, of Temer, at the height of the moment of not having a Ministry of Culture, not having a Secretariat of Culture, we always managed to bring French authors, we always managed to get some French funding, to hold our festival”, he commented.
Ludemir highlighted that Flup’s presence in the France-Brazil year was inevitable given the solidity of this partnership. “Flup, as a project, convinced the world before Brazil. When we came up with the idea of holding a literary festival in a favela in Rio de Janeiro, France opened its doors”, he stated, adding that Flup also once again partnered with the United Kingdom, through a notice from the British Council.
