Books to Eat:

Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World
Irene Vallejo

Reading is an act of slow ingestion. Like food, a book enters our body, transforms us from within, and leaves marks that endure long after the moment of reading. Books to Eat is a literary gastronomic club that brings together literature and culinary practice. At EscolaNova, books are not merely introduced: they are transformed into culinary experiences based on their atmosphere, rhythms and internal tensions.

At each gathering, a book is introduced by writer Afonso Cruz, creating the necessary framework for approaching its literary universe. That book is then read by participants between sessions, allowing the culinary experience to emerge from a relationship already built with the work. From there, the kitchen becomes a space of artistic translation: this is not about illustrating narratives or reproducing literal recipes, but about cooking the book’s ambience - extending the reading experience into the body, shared time and the table.

Over the course of a day, participants gather in the EscolaNova kitchen with theatre director Giacomo Scalisi and chef Rosário Pinheiro to imagine, prepare and share a meal inspired by the work in focus. Each session ends with the presentation of the next book, ensuring continuity in this journey where literature and cooking dialogue as complementary artistic languages.

This is the second edition of Books to Eat, a literary gastronomic club that affirms the kitchen as a space for creation and literature as living material - capable of being inhabited, transformed and shared.

The books selected to dialogue with meals also speak to one another:
“The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, by Milan Kundera, confronts us with the tension between weight and lightness, between responsibility and chance, evoking Nietzsche and Parmenides. This novel has an unusual relationship with “The Odyssey” (and inherently with “The Iliad”) and with “The Left Hand of Darkness”, by Ursula K. Le Guin - books that naturally sit at the table with Kurt Vonnegut for a “Breakfast of Champions” with Tralfamadorians - recurring aliens in the author’s books - and with Vonnegut’s alter ego, Kilgore Trout.

“With Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World”, by Irene Vallejo, we will read the history of the book as a fragile yet enduring object. We are a species that narrates itself, that records thoughts outside the brain - memories and fictions. “We Are Poetic Animals”, Michèle Petit assures us, arguing that literature is not only for understanding the world, but for inhabiting it - especially when reality becomes inhospitable.

22 February 2026
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Milan Kundera

29 March 2026
Breakfast of Champions
Kurt Vonnegut

07 June 2026
Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World
Irene Vallejo

30 August 2026
We Are Poetic Animals
Michèle Petit

18 October 2026
The Odyssey
Homero

13 December 2026
The Left Hand of Darkness
Ursula K. Le Guin