Gutun Zuria Festival in Bilbao

The Alhóndiga Bilbao cultural center will open its doors at the end of this year, but it's already begun to schedule events, such as the first annual Gutun Zuria festival. A lot will be happening in Bilbao this week, including lectures, audiovisual presentations, and theater performances.

Notable authors such as Jorge Semprún, Mariasun Landa, Paul Preston, Arcadi Espada, Cees Noteboom and Eric Hobsbawn will be coming to Vizcaya's capital to give talks. Ismail Kadaré opened the lecture series yesterday evening, and Bernardo Atxaga will close the series on Saturday February 7th.

The talks will start at 6pm and take place at the Guggenheim Museum. Bernardo Atxaga will speak on Saturday at 8pm.

The event has been organized by Alhóndiga Bilbao and is sponsored by BBK. Tickets and invitations can be acquired at Bilbao's main bookshops.

Alhóndiga introduced itself by writing, "Although I have yet to open my doors, I want to get to know the citizens for whom I am being conceived and designed. In the heart of Bilbao, a new space has started to beat and although I won't open my doors until the end of 2009, I can't wait until then to meet you and for you to be able to get to know me. For this reason, I'd like to invite you to participate in the Gutun Zuria festival, a literary festival that is coming to Bilbao this April and in which you can attend talks given by writers, exhibitions, film showings, contests, dramatic readings, music, workshops…all based on your letters."

• The full program (PDF) can be downloaded here.