From Paraty to Snape: FLIPSide Is Born
FlipSide Festival 2013
Orginal Artwork by XXXXX
What happens when one of Brazil’s most celebrated literary festivals crosses the Atlantic?
In 2013, it arrived at Snape Maltings.
Ten years earlier, in August 2003, the tiny fishing village of Paraty, on Brazil’s lush Costa Verde, had become the unlikely setting for a new kind of literary festival. FLIP — the Festa Literária Internacional de Paraty — brought writers from around the world together for three days of conversations, readings, music and ideas.
The festival was the brainchild of British publisher Liz Calder, who had a long-standing connection with Brazil and was one of the people behind FLIP’s creation. What began as an adventurous experiment grew into one of Latin America’s best-known literary festivals, attracting tens of thousands of visitors and inspiring literary festivals across Brazil.
Ten years later, Liz had another idea.
Why not bring the spirit of Paraty to Suffolk?
The answer was FlipSide, a new festival of Brazilian literature and music at Snape Maltings. Calder saw something familiar in the two places: both were extraordinary cultural destinations set within beautiful landscapes beside the water. Snape, with its historic buildings, musical heritage and surrounding marshes, could become a Suffolk counterpart to Paraty.
And so, in October 2013, Brazilian culture arrived on the Suffolk coast.
Paraty was 6,000 miles away.
But for a few days in October 2013, it felt remarkably close.
Leading Brazilian writers including Milton Hatoum, Bernardo Carvalho, Adriana Lisboa and Ana Maria Machado were joined by British writers including Ian McEwan, Will Self and Blake Morrison. Their conversations crossed languages, continents and cultures, exploring not only literature but identity, Brazil, Britain and the places that shape us.
Music was at the heart of the weekend too. The inaugural festival opened with The Boys from Ipanema, celebrating the centenary of poet and lyricist Vinicius de Moraes and the music of Tom Jobim, with Brazilian musicians José Miguel Wisnik, Paula Morelenbaum and Arthur Nestrovski.
The idea behind FlipSide was simple but ambitious: to recreate not just a literary festival, but the particular energy of FLIP – the sense that writers, musicians and audiences might come together somewhere beautiful and unexpected and discover new conversations.
And for one remarkable weekend, the Suffolk marshes became a meeting place between Brazil and Britain.