< strong > Panama's Casco Antiguo will become a cultural destination with "Central America Counts" < / strong >

From May 22 to 26, Panama will become a literary cultural destination with the conduct of the "Central America Account" festival, with more than 30 activities, especially at the Casco Antiguo of Panama City.

The festival will be dedicated to the Nicaraguan poet, storyteller, essayist and translator and winner of Reina Sofia's poetry prize in 2017, Claribel Alegría for his centennial of his birth.

That literary meeting will be held for the first time in Panama, as a result of the support of the Ministry of Culture (MiCultura) and will have more than 50 voices from 15 countries representing Ibero-American literature, cinema, music and journalism.

That will be the first edition of the festival that aims to project the country as a cultural destination where there will be spaces to count and reflect on the great issues of the region and will have as its headquarters the National Theater, the Canal Museum, the National Library of Panama and the Cultural Center of Spain in Panama-Casa del Soldado.

Entities such as the Mayor of Panama and the International Film Festival of Panama (IFF) have also supported this event that has a program that includes dialogues about literary editing and management in Central America, the relationship between literature and music or cinema, artificial intelligence and literature, a dialogue dedicated to Gabriel García Márquez ten years after his death, among others.

The essay book "The accounts of Central America," the fifth edition of the project of Chronicles, and poetry with verses that have been published, will be presented with a presentation of books and training workshops and with a presentation of the XII Central American Caratula Retirement.

The training programme will conduct three free workshops, one about cinema and literature by Argentinian writer, writer and playwright Claudia Piñeiro, another about environmental journalism in co-ordination with El País América and the third about journalism for podcast by Eliezer Budasoft, editor of El Hilo.

The call for these workshops will be announced in the next few days and to participate, applicants will have to sign up from the festival's website www.centramricacuenta.com

"It will be a pleasure for Central America to be in Panama for the first time, a country that will be a meeting and connection place for Central American and Ibero-American literature and culture for its production and dissemination throughout the region," said Claudia Bermudez, director of the Central American Festival and Cervantes Award 2017.

For his part, Gabriel González, Vice Minister of Culture, expressed that "we hope that with the conduct of this edition in Panama City, Panamanian literature will show its face to the region and we can start crossing these bridges that will help our letters to travel and become known beyond our boundaries."

Panama will be represented by the Panamanian Rubén Blades, Aristides Royo, Carlos Wynter, Consuelo Tomas, Isabel Burgos, Jorge Eduardo Ritter, Juan David Morgan and Sabrina Bacal.

The complete program will soon be available on the social networks of the festival, on the website www.centramricacuenta.com  and social networks of @ miculturapma.