Six distinguished poets from Greece and Spain will meet in Athens on Tuesday, September 8, for the 2026 Mediterranean Poetry Festival, organised by the Instituto Cervantes of Athens.
The festival aims to build a bridge between the poetic voices of the two countries while challenging the widespread perception that Spanish culture revolves exclusively around the Castilian language.
Four Spanish poets will join two Greek poets for readings on the Cervantes Institute’s rooftop in Kolonaki, central Athens. Their work will showcase the linguistic diversity of the Iberian Peninsula, including literary traditions shaped by Catalan, Galician and Asturian, alongside Castilian.
The event will feature the Castilian poetry of Juan Carlos Abril, the Catalan poetry of Mireia Calafell, the Galician work of Ledicia Costas and the Asturian poetry of Inaciu Galán.
The organisers say the festival will highlight the role of multilingualism in poetic expression and cultural identity. The programme also seeks to introduce audiences outside Spain to literary traditions that often receive little exposure beyond their respective regions.
The four Spanish voices will appear alongside Greek poets Ifigeneia Doumi and Stamatis Polenakis, whose work reflects different poetic generations and styles.
Both Greek participants also have longstanding connections with Spain. Polenakis lived in Spain, while Doumi regularly translates Spanish-language literature, giving both poets a direct relationship with the sound and literary traditions of Spanish.
The Mediterranean Poetry Festival brings poets, translators and artists from across the Mediterranean together to foster dialogue and connect different literary traditions and poetic sensibilities. The Instituto Cervantes launched the initiative in several Mediterranean cities to promote contemporary Spanish poetry in its different languages.
This year’s event follows the successful 2025 edition, which attracted a warm response from audiences in Athens. The 2026 festival continues that multilingual approach, bringing established poets, specialists and artists together for an evening focused on linguistic diversity and cultural exchange.
The participating poets
Juan Carlos Abril, born in Los Villares, Jaén, in 1974, teaches Literature Didactics at the University of Granada. He works as a poet, essayist, translator and literary critic. His poetry, collected in Poesía reunida (1997–2023), has appeared in several Latin American countries. He has translated writers including Pier Paolo Pasolini and Henri Michaux and edits the literary magazine Paraíso.
Mireia Calafell is a Catalan poet and co-director of the cultural production company La Sullivan. Her published works include Poètiques del cos, Costures, Tantes mudes, Nosaltres, qui and Si una emergència. Her work has received honours including the Lletra d’Or, the Mallorca Poetry Prize and the Carles Riba Prize. She has also co-directed the Poesia i més and Barcelona Poesia festivals.
Ledicia Costas, born in Vigo in 1979, ranks among the most recognised and widely translated writers in Galician literature. She has published almost 40 works of prose and poetry in Galician and Spanish for children, young adults and adults. Her awards include the National Prize for Children’s and Young People’s Literature for Escarlatina, la cocinera cadáver, the Castelao Medal and the 2025 El Barco de Vapor Prize for Feriópolis.
Ifigeneia Doumi is a poet and translator who studied English Literature, Dramatic Arts and Literary Translation. She has translated English-language and Spanish-language writers and poets. She has published two poetry collections, Love me tender (Saixpirikon, 2018) and Όλα μ’ αρέσουν (Kastaniotis, 2022), the latter of which reached the shortlist for poetry prizes from Chartis magazine and the Society of Thessaloniki Writers.
Inaciu Galán, born in Gijón, Asturias, in 1986, works as a journalist, documentary filmmaker, publisher and cultural manager and serves as a member of the Academy of the Asturian Language. He holds a PhD in Humanities from the University of Oviedo and has published around 15 books in Asturian, several of them poetry collections. He founded the magazine Formientu and the Residencia Lliteraria Xixón, and leads projects promoting Asturian language and culture through Cuatro Gotes Producciones.
Stamatis Polenakis, born in Athens in 1970, studied film directing in Athens and lived in Spain and Ireland. He has published eight poetry collections and the novel Η πάλη με τον άγγελο. In 2017, he won Greece’s State Poetry Prize and the Anagnostis magazine poetry award for his collection Τα τριαντάφυλλα της Μερσέδες, published by Mikri Arktos in 2016.
