“What I am reflecting on is that I have to forgive people, events, time, the world, the country and probably also myself in order to be able to write. Your Clarice Lispector was trying this, I assume, and somehow apparently she managed. Or maybe I should say this: I am writing in order to forgive.”
— Ece Temelkuran (Turkey), Letter to Annelies Beck, 15 August 2016
The second edition of the Passa Porta Festival took place from 26 to 29 March 2009. The festival started off with a literary exploration of the festival theme The World is a Workplace by Hungarian author Péter Nádas, at Passa Porta. On the 27th the European Constitution in Verse was presented at Flagey, Centre for Fine Arts. On Saturday 28th several international authors read from their work during Remapping the World at De Munt / La Monnaie Opera House.
On Sunday the festival reached its climax with the Parcours throughout the city center, including authors such as Alessandro Baricco, Jeroen Brouwers, Saskia De Coster, Mathias Enard, Alan Hollinghurst, Antonio Gamoneda, Olivier Rolin, Péter Nádas, Koen Peeters, Yves Petry, Jeroen Theunissen, William Marx, Catherine Millet, Erwin Mortier, Harry Mulisch, Ingo Schulze, Elif Shafak, Nawal El Saadawi, Juan Gabriel Vásquez and Zoé Valdés.
