Luis García Montero and Robert Portal

One of Spain’s greatest living poets Luis García Montero discusses his work and reads some of his poems. This event will be in Spanish with actor Robert Portal reading the poems in English alongside the Spanish readings.

Montero is author of 14 collections of poetry and has received many of Spain’s most prestigious prizes including the Adonais Prize, the National Poetry Prize, and the National Critics’ Poetry Award. His work translated into English includes the anthology The World So Often: Poems, 1982-2008. He is also author of a coming-of-age novel translated into English, Someone Speaks your Name, which follows an idealistic student exploring the power of literature in Franco’s Spain.

‘Luis García Montero’s poetry is indicative of one of the most valued trends in contemporary Spanish verse . . .  It explores everyday reality, which, on the one hand, borders the marvellous and, on the other, the quotidian’ Octavio Paz

Montero is a poet, essayist, fiction writer, journalist and professor of Spanish literature at the University of Granada. He has written extensively about Lorca. Since 2018 hehas been global director of the Cervantes Institute in Madrid. Portal is an actor known for roles as Paul Critchley in the BBC’s The Amazing Mrs Pritchard as the king in the film The Huntsman: Winter’s War and as the Duke of Richmond in the ITV drama series Belgravia.

Part of the festival’s programme of Spanish and Latin American literature and culture.