An epistolary, fictional account of one woman moving towards happiness in the black community of Colombia’s Pacific coast.
After a long absence, Vel has come home to Chocó – to the Afro-Colombian community, to her family, to the sea. This is where the Pacific meets the Caribbean, where she’s establishing herself anew. And the record she keeps is a series of letters to a friend, clarifying for herself where she stands, as she describes that homecoming to another. Vel works to build a literary centre, writing career, and festival with and for the people there. But her return to Chocó is also a claim-staking of her decision to pursue happiness now; an account of her immersion in the towns and rivers and forests she came from; and a redefinition of her relationship to sex and love in real time. And Tidal Waters is a vision of how creating something (for your community, for yourself) is a way of reading and writing your way into a known place and a new self.
Velia Vidal (Bahía Solano, Colombia, 1982) is a writer who loves the sea and shared readings. She was one of the BBC 100 Women (a list of 100 inspiring and influential women from around the world) in 2022. She was awarded a British Library Eccles Centre Fellowship as a result of her candidacy for the Eccles Centre Writers’ Fellowship Prize in 2023. Researcher at the Santo Domingo Centre of Excellence for Latin American Research (SDCELAR) at the British Museum, with the Afluentes project. She is a columnist for Cambio magazine. She published Chocó: selva, lluvia, río y mar (Lazo Libros, 2023) and Para vernos mejor (Laguna Libros, 2022). In 2021 she participated in the Hay Festival and SDCELAR project Volver a contar. In this project she published the story “Otilio”, for the book Volver a contar (Anagrama, 2022), Untold Microcosms Charco press (2022). In 2021 she was a fellow at Josepha, Ahrenshoop, Germany. For her book Aguas de estuario (Laguna Libros, 2020) she won the Publication Scholarship for Afro-Colombian authors awarded by the Colombian Ministry of Culture. She is co-author of Oír somos río (2019) and its bilingual German-Spanish edition (Grindwal Kollektiv, 2021). She has published the children’s story “Bajo el yarumo” as part of the collection Maletín de relatos pacíficos (Instituto Caro y Cuervo, Fondo Acción, 2017). She is founder and director of the Motete Educational and Cultural Corporation and the Chocó Reading and Writing Festival (FLECHO). Vidal is certified in Afro-Latin American Studies and has a Master’s degree in reading promotion and children’s literature. She is also a social communicator and journalist, and a social management specialist.
Moderated by: Paulina Alberto
Free and open to the public, but registration is required: https://forms.office.com/r/TbwqMz1E30
Location TBD
