The Casa de Rui Barbosa Foundation (FCRB) presents the first edition of the Literary Festival (FliRui), which will be held from November 28th to 30th, at the mansion in Botafogo. The program is diverse and includes literature, music, theater, debates, workshops and other free activities. 
The festival is attended by important names from Brazil’s cultural and political sector, such as the Minister of Culture, Margareth Menezes, the Minister of the Federal Supreme Court Cármen Lúcia, the singer Maria Bethânia, the musician Lirinha and the writers Ailton Krenak, Ana Paula Tavares and Ondjaki.
With the theme “Literature and Democracy”, the first edition of FliRui hopes, according to the organization, to stimulate critical thinking and participation in social life in the public.
“Updating the debates more, activating this archive more, democratizing access to this collection and also ensuring that the city’s population itself has more access to the Fundação Casa de Rui Barbosa as a whole. This was the origin of the project”, says the event’s curator and head of the Archive-Museum of Brazilian Literature at FCRB, Maria de Andrade.
For the Minister of Culture, Margareth Menezes, celebrating FliRui means affirming that literature and democracy go hand in hand.
“This is the role of the Ministry of Culture, to value our creators, preserve our heritage and expand access to reading for everyone”, he said.
One of the new features presented is the unprecedented donation of books by indigenous writers Daniel Munduruku, Eliane Potiguara and Márcia Kambeba. For the first time, the Archive-Museum of Brazilian Literature will officially incorporate literary works by indigenous authors.
Among the 154 holders of the archive, there was no indigenous writer. According to Andrade, “indigenous literature is already consolidated literature, so this was a very felt absence in the archive”.
Rio World Book Capital
The city of Rio de Janeiro was elected the World Book Capital in 2025 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco). Every year, the organization chooses a representative, and the city was the first Portuguese-speaking city to receive the title.
With this, the capital of Rio de Janeiro has the mission of promoting and coordinating events linked to literature, and FCRB hopes that FliRui will join the city’s calendar of annual literary events.
According to Alexandre Santini, president of the Casa de Rui Barbosa Foundation, “holding the first edition of FliRui in the year in which Rio is the UNESCO World Book Capital is celebrating the creative imagination and the playful nature of literary activity”.
*Intern under the supervision of journalist Mariana Tokarnia.
