International literary residency

From June 2022, Barcelona has an international literary residency. The space chosen is Vil·la Joana, the old farmhouse located in the Collserola park where Jacint Verdaguer died on June 10, 1902.

The residence has three individual bedrooms with a private bathroom and work area, as well as several shared spaces, such as the kitchen-dining room, designed to promote the relationship between the authors who stay there. The environment in which the building is located, in the middle of the Collserola mountain range, offers a favourable environment for literary creation and research, and at the same time guarantees easy accessibility to the city.

With the incorporation of this equipment, Barcelona, UNESCO City of Literature, is integrated into an international writer exchange circuit with the rest of the cities in the network, which aims to promote the mobility of authors as a core element of the diffusion of the world literatures.

The Vil·la Joana literary residencies project includes several modalities:

Writers from cities that are part of the UNESCO Cities of Literature Network.
Translators, prioritising translations of works by Barcelona authors in particular or Catalan authors in general or works by foreign authors in which the city of Barcelona occupies a prominent place, even as a narrative space for fiction, or as the central theme of literary or cultural essays.
Writers from other literary exchange programs with ICUB participation, with the aim of opening the doors to literary talent from everywhere.

It is expected that the space will always open its doors during the spring and summer months and that the stay of the creators will be one month per resident.

The residence includes a parallel program of activities linked to the literary network of the city and public facilities -such as libraries, museums, schools, and civic centres- in addition to the activities that will take place at the MUHBA Vil·la Joana.