April, Barcelona, on the eve of Sant Jordi Day. The evenings are getting longer, and the light, instead of burning, softens and is more promising than ever. Spring is above all synonymous with natural light that invites all us to go out, to read, to talk, to listen, to walk. And that is what we have been doing in Barcelona during the four days, from April 20th to 23rd, in which the 20th anniversary of ICORN (The International Cities of Refuge Network) has been held. From one working session to another, from one literary conversation to another, from one act of remembrance to another, surrounded by the feelings and sensations that overwhelm people who one day had to leave everything behind: home, friends, family, work, and set out towards an unknown, distant, uncertain place, where they had to start from scratch and create a new home.

But what is “home”? Home is often a language, a painting, those we have painted or paint, home is the few books we have been able to carry with us, those we have left behind and those we treasure every day. Home is an evoked meal, a longed-for taste, an affection not lost. And in the midst of all that, it is difficult not to lose self-esteem when one lands in a new and strange territory, where you do not understand the sounds, nor know the addresses, nor does any face seem familiar. A place where schedules seem anarchic, flavours foreign, where routine still has to be reinvented, where everything remains to be done and one does not know what will be possible and what not. In the midst of all this, home is, at the very least, recovering one’s voice and freedom.

Voice and freedom

George Orwell said that “freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” And he referred to the word freedom as a whole revolution in times when lies reigned. Many years have passed since Orwell expressed this idea, but still today —or in a certain sense, today more than ever— the struggles of the English writer, activist and critic summon us with reason and force.

I have just spent a few days in Barcelona on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of ICORN, and also of the Writer in Residence Programme of Catalan PEN. Since 2006, the year in which this network of cities of refuge was founded, the Catalan PEN, with the support of Barcelona City Council, has been part of it. At the time, Palma and Girona were also cities of refuge. At present, however, Barcelona is the only city in the whole of Spain that offers refuge to writers and artists who are threatened, persecuted or at risk in their countries.

During these three days —and even throughout Sant Jordi Day -the great Book Fest of Catalonia- for those who were able to extend their stay— artists, writers and journalists, experts, and representatives from 92 different countries have gathered in Barcelona to listen, speak and share experiences and knowledge under the motto “Cities in Revolt! Freedom, Culture, Refuge”. In total, 250 people who have been able to connect during long periods of conversation in different activities of the assembly and cultural events, as well as moments of fellowship around good food and drink, during which to talk freely and without haste.

Foto: Raimon Solà

They have been intense, fruitful, emotional days and also at times amusing, non-stop: debates, events, dialogues, meals, performances. Moments of connection and exchange, days in which, as Laura Huerga, President of Catalan PEN, pointed out at the Sant Jordi Dasy breakfast: “the centre has not been us, but others, and nowadays, as things stand, that already seems to me a small victory.”

This small victory is, to a large extent, the merit of the work carried out by the organisers of the congress, both from ICORN and from Catalan PEN, who during four days have spent many hours on their feet, going up and down stairs, and walking miles through corridors. Not to mention the previous work for months so that everything would turn out perfectly, and so it has been.

Giving voice to faces: a moment of connection

Speaking up freely, in a safe space and surrounded by people who listen to you and who very often are in a similar situation to yours, was one of the aims of this meeting. During the days shared in Barcelona many of the artists and writers have stopped feeling strictly like refugees and residents, to recover what they are: creators with a name, a face and a their work, artists who need and wish to continue creating, beyond a category on a passport or a residence permit. Humanising the moment and the people, that was the aim. To make them feel accompanied, listened to, valued.

Foto: Raimon Solà

What the English say, “sharing is caring”, a phrase that we sometimes see printed on bookmarks or coffee mugs, has a lot of truth to it, because letting people tell and unfold their story, explain themselves, and listening without judging, is a way of caring for people. “Sharing is caring” is establishing contacts and connections between people who come from different parts of the world, people who carry their own story. Because hearing how others feel and fear similar things helps people in situations of emotional and physical vulnerability not to feel like an island threatened by storms.

And in the midst of all this: art, books, creating, imagining, telling, inventing, to heal the soul, to surround oneself with affection, to find meaning in who they are and what they do. Art that heals wounds. Art to save oneself and to save others. Like the case of the literary café created by the visual artist and journalist Evan Hikmat, author of illustrations for many children’s books and art workshops. She and her partner have set up Oud Gallery Cafe, in Haugesund, Norway: “It is a café where jazz and art come together, a place with concerts and exhibitions where one can listen to music and instruments from the Middle East and where the doors are open to share art, conversation and enjoy their food: a point of welcome and personal and collective growth” —Hikmat explained on the last day before the audience. And she added: “as my mother said, art can connect the whole world and that is what I believe. I know that loss can become action and turn into art, an art that heals.”

Their struggle defends our democracy

I try to put myself in the shoes of all these artists and writers, after having heard them say that being free is not the same as feeling free. After having heard them explain that sometimes they walk through the streets with a kind of fear, turning their heads, watchful, nervous. Hearing them verbalise everything they have to struggle against, a feeling of guilt that settles in their soul because they have managed to “escape”, to save themselves, and the others, those who stayed behind, continue to suffer. Because often they cannot even be in contact with their own, because they lose track of them, and the news that arrives, or that never arrives, unsettles them. Because often they cannot even be at peace with themselves, and because their self-esteem becomes fragile, when persecuted and expelled from their home, they arrive in a country that welcomes them, yes, but where they feel like strangers having to start from zero.

This is how Zainab Saberi, Afghan journalist and artist, resident of the Catalan PEN Writer in Residence programme, commented in one of the conversations between events. Saberi arrived in Barcelona at the end of 2025, after a long journey of escapes, waiting and procedures, accompanied by her 10-year-old daughter. The Afghan artist spoke publicly with the director of Catalan PEN and programme coordinator, Gemma Rodríguez, in a dialogue that highlighted Zainab Saberi’s creative work and the artistic and vital moment she is currently experiencing, a few months after her arrival in Barcelona. Since her arrival, and progressively, Saberi has been participating in various cultural events organised by PEN and coming into contact with the Catalan language and culture.

I said that I try to put myself in their shoes, but it is difficult. How does one make a home out of a city of refuge, between the shadow of threats received in the past, the longing for one’s own and the memories treasured? What must it be like to look at the sky when from the sky you have seen bombs fall? This refuge, I said, is a home, a new home difficult to define. Natalia Ginzburg approached it in The Little Virtues: “The war has passed and people have seen so many houses collapse that now they no longer feel safe in their own homes, which are no longer calm and firm as before. There is something from which one never recovers, and years will pass, but we will never heal. Perhaps we will again have a lamp on the table or a vase of flowers and the portraits of our loved ones, but we no longer believe in any of these things because once we had to abandon them unexpectedly or look for them among the rubble.”

We have heard it many times these days, difficult times are coming: messages of hatred and intolerance spread everywhere, xenophobic gestures, poisonous fake news, open conflicts, massacres… Everything points to weakening democracy, to destroying freedom and human dignity. “Lately,” pointed out Laura Huerga, “we have not had many occasions for joy despite the struggle, the resistance and the work being done to defend freedom of expression and human rights.” Perhaps precisely for this reason, the ICORN anniversary meeting has been key because, although the discussion about violence and repression, war, conflict, genocide and the people who have to endure, there has been something even more important: “they have spoken and we have listened to artists, writers and journalists from Bangladesh, Iran, Palestine, Sudan, Myanmar and many others, whether through their denunciation or their art —Huerga stressed on such a significant day as Sant Jordi—. We have thanked them for their tireless struggle, for demanding that we do not remain silent, that we act, that we do more and better. And we have also thanked them for pointing out our contradictions and hypocrisies; because do not doubt that their struggle defends our democracy.”

In short, a struggle and a pain that is in no way alien to us. As Burhan Sönmez —lawyer and writer of Kurdish origin, president of PEN International, specialist in human rights, and professor at Cambridge— pointed out, “I cannot be calm knowing that in my country, and in other places, there are people suffering torture and repression, hunger and deprivation.” Sönmez, author of novels such as Istanbul Istanbul, spoke with the Turkish writer and musician Zülfü Livaneli, author of The House of Leyla, in the framework of the Sant Jordi Dialogues on Turkey, his exile, the idea of home, language, culture and identity. In another setting, moreover, the previous day Sönmez had spoken with other colleagues about the challenges and the role of cities of refuge in defending democracy, freedom of expression and international solidarity, especially in an international environment and circumstances that are far from easy, where “every programme counts and networking is important.”

Listening and learning or learning to listen?

Rarely do we have the opportunity to listen to so many people, experts, artists, politicians, from such diverse fields, all related to the work of defending freedom of expression and the word, defending human rights in different realities. All of them have debated and spoken these days in our home about the challenges they encounter in their work: the tightening of migration policies, the criminalisation of migration, the few places available in the ICORN Network to host despite the waiting list. The speaker from Poland lamented having only 6 places. In the Catalan Countries and in Spain we have only one, Barcelona, even though it has been there since the beginning of the project.

Even so, the struggle of others is also ours and if democracy is in danger in their country, ours also wavers in some way. Because messages of hatred and intolerance spread and penetrate rapidly hand in hand with fascism, disguised as democratic far right, and because we are pieces of a very large world that barely “maintains its balance.” A day will come when Valencia, the city where I was born and now live, will also be a city of refuge. Why not? Paraphrasing the poet, we cannot lose hope; rather, we will live by hope (no morirem d’esperança, ans d’esperança viurem).

Literary conversations and Catalan exile

Foto: Raimon Solà

In the warmth of Cities in Revolt, there have been very emotional and beautiful moments. Undoubtedly, some of the most unforgettable were the literary conversations between the Turkish writer Ece Temelkuran, author of How to Lose a Country a Nation of Strangers, and Laura Huerga. The deep and sharp reflections of both left the audience captivated and immersed in a great silence and final applause. “I cannot speak about myself if I do not speak about other people, about the pain of losing a country, a home.” With an assertiveness and strength that knocked everything down, Temelkuran spoke about how to survive exile and in exile: “You cannot survive by yourself, vulnerability is not weakness —she insisted— and you do not want to survive alone, but with others.”

Foto: Raimon Solà

But also, one of the special and emotional moments was the session in which the Institut Ramon Llull, through Míriam Cano and Paula Jornet, explained with poems, selected fragments and images that the history of Catalans has also been a history of violence, persecution, repression and censorship, and of the prohibition of our language. Silence fell over the room and the voice of Ovidi Montllor began to sound, together with the guitar of Toti Soler setting to music the Corrandes d’exili by Pere Quart. From that moment on, the faces and texts of Teresa Pàmies, Jacint Verdaguer, Joaquim Amat-Piniella, Blai Bonet, Pere Calders, Mercè Rodoreda and Maria-Mercè Marçal filled everything. “We are very grateful for this event, because it has opened our eyes to a history we did not know and that we now understand much better,” said some attendees. In the words of Sabine Gimbrère —Director of International Affairs of the City of Amsterdam, elected in Barcelona as the next president of the ICORN board—: “We have learned that Barcelona has a long history of resistance through culture. Thank you for opening my eyes to Catalan exile.”

Foto: Raimon Solà

Foto: Raimon Solà

All in all, Cities in Revolt has become days of connection and dialogue, of listening, sharing and learning mutually, and also from Catalan PEN —as Laura Huerga recalled on Sant Jordi— we have explained and narrated our history: how in Spain there has been an explicit will to eliminate minoritised languages and national identities, and how even today we experience the difficulty and the consequences of speaking Catalan with a judge, a doctor or a police officer. A reality that many of them understood very well, because when one wants to undermine the affection and strength of a people and a culture, one begins with the language. That is why defending linguistic rights is defending human rights.

Good food brings people together, the night at Fabra i Coats

Days also of eating and drinking. From the first toast with cava, through all the breaks sweetened by coffee and pastries, to the triumphant night of chef Ada Parellada, they have been three days of shared flavours. Standing, whether in the courtyard of the CCCB, from where at midday one can see reflected in the slanted glass of one of the walls the profile of the city, the chimneys of Paral·lel and the blue of the sea. Or in the wide space with very high ceilings of the Fabra i Coats Factory, there is nothing like good food and drink to loosen tongues, speak better English, Italian or French, and to strengthen ties and create bonds.

Foto: Raimon Solà

Mediterranean flavours, simple but profound, delicate samples of an ancestral cuisine, accompanied by magnificent wines from Lleida. And the great surprise of the evening guided by Ada Parellada Memorable, one of the most amusing moments: drinking from a porró and eating postres de músic, with the special flavour of hazelnuts and the sweetness of muscat wine. Undoubtedly, many will have taken home memorable snapshots.

Foto: Raimon Solà

An evening also full of art and expression, under the warmth of the voices of artists such as Ghawgha or Mohammed Elsusi, the dance of Kai Zin, and the strings of the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, the Norwegian city that hosts ICORN, or the satirical video produced and edited by Aymen Hameed that made the entire audience laugh with a Donald Trump who sent ICORN his “best wishes.”

Foto: Raimon Solà

Undoubtedly, the most outstanding images of the night were recorded, for posterity, in the drawings of the mural created by illustrator Ivan McGill, who, little by little, captured the spirit of the soirée on paper, in a mural that travelled with the ICORN colleagues as an irreplaceable memory.

Foto: Raimon Solà

Foto: Raimon Solà

Spaces and unforgettable moments

Days of conversation, challenges, resilient stories, fragments of life exposed and shared, and spaces that remain in the memory: the solemnity of the Saló de Cent, from where the mayor of the city, Jaume Collboni, welcomed all the participants of the ICORN Assembly (and what a beautiful image to see at the doors of the City Hall a large group of people from all over the world with the red bag on their shoulder reading Cities in Revolt! Freedom, Culture, Refuge!). But also the welcoming versatility of the CCCB: its theatre, the auditorium, the different rooms, the courtyard, with the city reflected in its heights. Welcoming spaces and refuge for every moment. And of course, the beauty and modernity of the Gabriel García Márquez Library, a space to dream, or the grandeur and history of the Francesca Bonnemaison Library. And finally, but no less impressive, the glamour of the industrial archaeology of Fabra i Coats, a space open to critical and reivindicative events such as the Literal Fair or Cities in Revolt.

Foto: Raimon Solà

And the moment came to say goodbye, and to hand over to the next hosts in Gothenburg, Sweden, where the next ICORN assembly will be held from 2 to 4 June 2027. The time also to bring onto the stage the organising host team of PEN Català and surround them with intense applause, to listen to the farewell and gratitude words of the president of PEN, the editor Laura Huerga, and to listen for the last time to the vibrating strings of the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra with El Cant dels Ocells by Pau Casals. And last but not least, the final farewell: the words of recognition and the wish for a safe return by the President of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Salvador Illa.

Foto: Raimon Solà

As an epilogue:

Sant Jordi, Ali Smith, a combative proclamation and absent signings

Wednesday 22, Plaça Sant Jaume, countdown to Sant Jordi. It is a very pleasant evening, sunny, without wind, but in some shaded spots, especially if the sea breeze reaches them, it is a little cool. At this hour people move up and down, return from work, or simply wander a little because today is the eve of Sant Jordi, and the celebration can be sensed in the air, almost as much as books and roses.

At the door of the City Hall —decorated with two giant posters “Happy Sant Jordi” and a tapestry with the coat of arms of Barcelona— there is a small gathering of librarians dressed in black and wearing masks, holding signs and a large banner that reads: “Libraries in struggle”, “We defend our libraries”. For now they stand there and talk among themselves, they are not yet shouting or whistling.

The guests of the Sant Jordi proclamation (el pregó de Sant Jordi), this year delivered by the Scottish writer Ali Smith, enter and go towards the Saló de Cent. It is worth looking down, into the courtyard, where there is the statue of Saint George with a bouquet of roses at his feet. He has earned them, year after year, holding the bronze figure.

Once inside the Saló de Cent, everything is grand: the lamps, the tapestries, the height, the dimension of the room, the ceilings, the velvet seats along the sides, arranged for ceremonies. There is silence and expectation, roses and more roses. Ali Smith delivers the proclamation: intense, reivindicative, confessional, encouraging, a kind of cry for the book, no longer as an object, but as shelter and reserve of the soul, individual and collective refuge: “I am made 75% of water, but 90% of books,” she says, “all my books are made of other books, it is as if they are already in me, I just have to dig inside myself and bring them out”, “libraries are the true brain of the world, we must protect them,” said the Scottish writer. And “I wish Sant Jordi were contagious,” wished Ali Smith, “because I have never seen a city do anything like this, celebrate books and life like Barcelona.” And it is true that, despite everything, Sant Jordi is a magnificent celebration. And it is true that, as Ali Smith said, “literature is powerful, and that is why it angers tyrants.”

This year, moreover, this ceremonial atmosphere of the proclamation took on a special tone with Ali Smith —activist for the defence of public libraries in the United Kingdom, where centres continue to close every day, and author, among others, of Public Libraries. Smith, together with her Catalan translator, Dolors Udina, made the proclamation and the subsequent conversation a moment more combative and human than ceremonial. And they did so in an emotional, profound conversation, full of humour and intelligence.

Amid the silence and expectation of the hall, from the street came the shouts of protest from librarians demanding more resources for the Barcelona Public Library network, three hundred of which, coinciding with Sant Jordi week, were beginning an indefinite strike. In the hall, there were also some librarians holding protest signs, asking to be allowed to be present.

And Sant Jordi arrived

And Sant Jordi arrived, day of books and flowers and all the participants of ICORN, once the congress had ended, were invited to walk among the bookshops and stalls, to meet other authors and share with them.

But Sant Jordi is also the celebration of absent writers, those who cannot be with us. To all of them Catalan PEN, in collaboration with ICUB (Institut de Cultura de Barcelona), has dedicated this year, for the first time, a physical stand, with their names and an empty chair in the middle of Passeig de Gràcia. Ten absent signings scheduled, among them those of Yalqun Rozi, Mieral Simsek, Inocent Bahati, or María Cristina Garrido, writers who today will not be able to sign books because they are persecuted or imprisoned, some of them with health problems, others disappeared, exiled or murdered. To many of them PEN will send letters and postcards written by all those who, during any PEN event, wish to send them a message, some verses, some words.

And night fell, time to dismantle tents and stands, and a necessary rest, after a dizzying week (perhaps I should say weeks). Once again, another Sant Jordi and the challenge and the handover are ready for the next ICORN assembly.

Meanwhile, the international team of the Cities of Refuge Network and the team of Catalan PEN have set the bar very high: organisation, guests, atmosphere, transport, accommodation, meals—they have taken care of every detail. The next meeting will be in Sweden, in June 2027, when the days will have become warm and the nights very short. For now, a great deal of work well done and much more still to be done.

Lourdes Toledo

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