UPCOMING EVENTS
Welcome to our events page.
Unless stated otherwise, all events occur in
Desperate Literature, Calle de la Cava Baja 8, Madrid,
and are not ticketed!
Casa Poética Open Mic
with special guest
Gabriel Vargas Zapata (Venezuela)
Dec 14th
16h-18h
Join the participants of our poetry discussion group @casapoetica.madrid in an open mic session!
Spanish poet @irene_torra will host this poetic afternoon, where guest poet Gabriel Vargas Zapata (Venezuela, 1982) will share their work, discussing migration, writing and identity.
We’ll then open the mic and you can read your own poetry, a text by a poet you like, or simply join us and enjoy the readings.
This is a bilingual event (esp/eng) but ALL languages are welcome!
Please make sure to book your spot, as spaces are limited.
Cost €5
Drinks included!
Calabobos
Luis Mario
con Lucía Reyes
Dec 17th
20h
«Una de esas novelas raras y extraordinarias que contienen un mundo» Layla Martínez
Celebramos Calabobos con lecturas y una discusión!
En Cantabria «calabobos» responde a una llovizna menuda que cae de forma imperceptible, por eso en esta novela llueve todo el rato y sus personajes están mojados permanentemente. Rodeado de paisajes bellos a la par que violentos y a través de una oralidad descarnada, maleducada, y un cántabru tosco y fiero, el protagonista de esta historia habla de la brutalidad silenciosa de un pueblo desamparado, que cala poco a poco en su gente sin que ni siquiera se den cuenta, mientras trata de encontrar a su hermana antes de que llegue la pleamar.
Han tenido que pasar varios años para que Luis Mario se diera cuenta de que vivía empapado y, una vez seco, ha podido escribir sobre la Mujer Oso, el Hombre Pez, mujeres que amamantan a perros, hombres que destripan vacas y vacas que caen al mar. Sobre Mariuca y Nanda La Chona, infusiones que todo lo matan, percebes con el sexo descomunal, gorriones que brotan de la tierra, vainas llenas de dientes, viejas que se alimentan de críos o un feto dentro de un mejillón. Pero, por encima de todo, ha escrito sobre un sitio que se niega a cambiar. Calabobos supone la invención de un nuevo relato mitológico, hermosísimo y afilado como las rocas de un acantilado.
Luis Mario (Cantabria, 1992) ha publicado tres novelas: El rastro que dejan las gotas (autopublicada, 2019), Cadencia de estornino (Salto de página, 2021) y Bello trozo redondo de mar (Sr. Scott, 2023). Trabajó durante años como creativo publicitario para marcas como Nike, Audi y Unicef, pero lo dejó todo para viajar por el mundo y escribir la que fue su primera novela. También impartió clases de inglés en un campo de refugiados sirios en Grecia y montó una biblioteca en un pueblo de Camboya. Actualmente trabaja como creativo publicitario autónomo desde un pueblito de Cataluña, donde también imparte y comparte un taller de escritura con sus vecinas.
Shadow Ticket
A Book Club
with Elizabeth Duval, Sara Barquinero
y Alfredo Suárez
Sat 20th Dec
12h
In English y Español
15 places available.
PLEASE BOOK HERE
It is important to have read the book before coming.
We offer a 10% discount on copies to anybody attending!
PAST EVENTS
Al umbral de la Plaza Mayor
con el autor
Olivier Sterckx, Ricardo Bustos, y
Reino de Cordelia
Dec 12th
19h30
Nos acompañará el autor Olivier Sterckx, Ricardo Bustos, presidente de la Asociación Residentes de la Plaza Mayor de Madrid y Aledaños, promotora de esta iniciativa, junto a Jesús Egido, editor de Reino de Cordelia.
En una conversación cercana y enriquecedora, compartirán las distintas etapas del proceso creativo: desde la idea que dio origen al proyecto, hasta los entrañables aportes fotográficos de los vecinos y los reportajes que dan vida a sus páginas.
Será una ocasión única para descubrir cómo la memoria colectiva se transforma en literatura visual y afectiva. ¡No faltes! Te esperamos para celebrar juntos este homenaje a la Plaza Mayor y sus historias vivas.
Madrid Launch of
‘The Relegation Reader’
FRI 5th Dec
20h
Please join us for the Madrid launch of The Relegation Reader, an anthology bringing together the work of some of the most exciting writers from the U.S, U.K., and Europe. Readings and conversation from Spanish contributors Óscar García Sierra and anthology editor Will Mountain Cox.
Óscar García Sierra is from León and lives in Madrid. He is the author of the poetry book Houston, I’m the Problem and the novels Facendera and Ropa tendida.
Will Mountain Cox is from Portland, Oregon, and lives in Paris, France. He is the author of the novel Roundabout.
About ‘The Relegation Reader’:
At a moment when artificial intelligence is challenging writers in every facet of artistic production, The Relegation Reader celebrates writing in its rawest, most evocative form. Each piece is an emerging star in a constellation of new poetry and prose that illuminates our shared world.
In this collection, edited by Paris-based author Will Mountain Cox (Roundabout and With Paris in Mind: Talking with Artists of This Generation), twenty-six contemporary writers in the US, UK, and Europe offer a fresh view of identity, technology, memory, and place.
Rafael Carvajal
New Voices:
en evening of poetry
(evento bilingüe)
Fri 28th November
20h
Speaking unedited verse in a new voice, in tongues, like the devils of the new testament.
Rafael Carvajal nace en Málaga en 1964. En 1976 emigra a Estados Unidos donde publica: Deep enough to dive in, Dogs and the flowers chey piss on y Bucketful of wing nuts a finales de los 80 con Drew Blood Productions Limited. También se involucra con el movimiento Open Mike, recitando en ciudades como Los Angeles, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Boston y más. En 1995 retorna a España instalándose en el madrileño barrio de Lavapiés donde toma contacto con el ambiente poético de Madrid y participa en diferentes recitales. Ha publicado, Mi psicóloga me dice que se jubila, colección hecho en Lavapiés, Amargord, Misántropo con buen corazón con L.U.P.I. ediciones, El cantón libre y ácrata de Lavapiés – Salvoconducto 95 y ,ahora, 25 odas y un poema interminable con Inflamavle ediciones que también produjo el documental sobre su vida y obra, Yo maté a Ralph Greene, disponible en Filmin. Desde 2022 ha colaborado con la compañía Teatro de los Invisibles en la obra Contención mecánica sobre las práctica psiquiátrica de atar a pacientes a la cama. En la obra hace de sí mismo como loco, activista y poeta.
The Desperate Literature
Prize Salon:
Celebrating the Shortlist
Fri 21st November
20h
‘Generous, soulful distillations. A tasting flight of prosaic kerosene. Each story ignited a flare in a forsaken corner of my mind. I can’t wait to experience more from these voices.’
—Henry Hoke
We celebrate one of our most exciting selections yet! Our 2025 shortlist covers a spectrum of experimental and boundary pushing fiction.
From a Faulknerian river story to the lushest, queerest body horror — from cross-country feminist malaise to cross-border love — prophets, mothers, labourers — a tedious apocalypse, post-capitalist hope — these eleven stories are brimming with magic, longing, and humour.
Join us for an evening of readings and then some drinks!
Joanna Walsh
Amateurs!
How We Built Internet Culture
and Why It Matters
Monday 10th November
20h
“Amateurs! is a eulogy and a manifesto for the internet revolution that came and went before our eyes, on our screens, beneath our fingertips: the revolution of the amateur.”
Helena Aeberli, Los Angeles Review of Books
The story of how you created internet culture and why it matters
Since the nineties, platforms have invited users to create in return for connection. From blogs to vlogs, tweets to memes: for the first time in history, making art became the fundamental form of communication.
What started as fun soon became currency, something vital to finding friends, work, and love. Then, as ‘meatspace’ job security eroded, online creativity became work itself. Now an internet presence is no longer optional, platforms increasingly charge users. Whatever it is we’re creating online, it isn’t amateur anymore. But is it art?
In this scintillating philosophical history of the internet, Joanna Walsh, author of Girl Online, examines how and why creativity became the price of digital existence.
Joanna Walsh is a multidisciplinary writer for print, digital and performance. The author of twelve books (several co-written with DIY AIs that she coded), her publishers include Semiotext(e), Bloomsbury and Verso. She is the creator of the digital narratives, seed-story.com and miss-communication.ie. Her work has been performed/exhibited at venues including IMMA, the ICA, BETA Festival Dublin, and Sample Studios Cork. She founded and directed the online activist projects @read_women (2014-18), and @noentry_arts (2019_2024). She was the 2020 Markievicz Awardee for Literature, the 2017 UK Arts Foundation fellow for literature; an Anthony Burgess Centenary Writer Fellow at the University of Manchester and a 2024 DAAD Artists in Berlin awardee (refused in solidarity with the Palestine).
Lauren Francis-Sharma
Casualties of Truth
Friday 14th November
20h
“I COULD NOT PUT THIS BOOK DOWN”
– Xochitl Gonzalez
“Casualties of Truth is a page-turner so engrossing that you never get distracted by the exceptional grace of its storytelling. Tense yet character-driven, Lauren Francis-Sharma has created a brilliant rumination on how we use the malleable clay of memory to sculpt our understanding of ourselves and the world.”
—Mat Johnson, author of Pym and Invisible Things
From the author of Book of the Little Axe, nominated for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the critically acclaimed ‘Til the Well Runs Dry, a riveting literary novel with the sharp edges of a thriller about the abuses of history and the costs of revenge, set between Washington, D.C., and Johannesburg, South Africa.
Lauren Francis-Sharma, a Pushcart nominated writer, is author of Book of the Little Axe, a 2020 finalist for the Hurston/Wright Award in Fiction. Her critically acclaimed novel, ‘Til the Well Runs Dry was awarded the Honor Fiction Prize by the Black Caucus of the ALA. Her third novel, Casualties of Truth, a finalist for the 2025 Caricon Prize, was inspired by her time at South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Amnesty Hearings. Lauren wrote the foreword to the latest edition of Cry, the Beloved Country, serves as Award Chair for the PEN/Faulkner Foundation and is the Assistant Director of Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.
Fatema Abdoolcarim
Tremble
an evening of poetry
Monday 17th November
20h
‘Tremble is a gift of profound proportions, conveying with her signature brilliant and caring gaze the variable inner and outer textures of life.’
– Gabrielle Bates
Tremble, Fatema Abdoolcarim’s debut collection of poems, is an intimate and involving sequence on fertility and faith. A memoir in verse, these poems relate encounters with the animal other, the uncertain, but always echoing the tender rituals of family, food, prayer. Abdoolcarim thinks through what it means to care – and to mother – at a time where atrocity makes those systems of loving seem out of reach. Tremble traces the sensual and unknown spaces of desire, creating a hopeful lyric in spaces of private and global loss.
Fatema Abdoolcarim was born and raised in Hong Kong to a Peshawari Pakistani mother and a Gujarati Indian father, and tells stories shaped by the textures of her upbringing and community. Trained in photography and fine arts in the US, she taught herself filmmaking with a DSLR. Her debut short documentary Heidi (Locarno, 2016) and her narrative short Sweet Lime (ZINEBI’65, 2023) have screened internationally. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Manchester, where her research explored female desire in Islamic miniature painting. Her debut poetry collection, Tremble (Monitor Books), is out now. She is currently developing her first feature film, Hum, and a collaborative cookbook with poet Rebecca Hurst, inspired by the art of Leonora Carrington.