Sant Jordi at Collioure Sat 19th April 2008
Catalan’s celebrate their saint’s day with a book and rose fair. For this year‘s Sant Jordi, Collioure has invited 24 writers and editors. Starting at 14h00 they will show their wares - everything from medieval archeology to comic book heroes - in the market square. Local products such as wine, biscuits and anchovies will also be on display. At 16h00 the group “les Veus de L’Estany” will sing *havaneras, from the Cuban capital where Catalan mariners picked up the local style of lilting dance music. An aperitif at 18h00 will close the festivities.
The Albères Writers Group invites you to browse through our books. Volume 1 of the “Sant Jordi Collection” is entirely in English. Volume 2 is bilingual - French and English. Buy one of our volumes or, better yet, two! And get a rose, offered by the L’Union des Commerçants et artisans de Collioure. Come and meet our writers from Canada, England, Ireland, South Africa, and the U.S. Look for the stand with the wish tree! Each book sold guarantees a wish come true!
*Havaneres - named after the capital town of Cuba, La Habana (Havana), these sea shanties were brought back from Cuba by sailors in the 19th Century, and tell of lost loves and faraway ancestors. These lovely ’sing-songs’ are usually accompanied by guitar and accordion, and sometimes bass, along with the traditional drink to accompany Havaneres, ron cremat, a mixture of rum, sugar, lemon peel and coffee beans, with optional cinammon stick, served in an earthenware bowl and flambéed to burn off the alcohol.
Although the reported origins of havaneras was in Cuba in the 19th century, the first seeds were apparently sewn a little earlier, when the rhythm of a European dance known as the “contradansa” arrived on the island. The“contradansa” originated from England in the 16th century coming from ’country dance’, and reached France a century later)
