Four members of Queen Mary´s Department of Hispanic Studies, Dr Else Vieira, Dr Omar García, Dr Parvati Nair and Ms Mariana Cunha, played a prominent role in a Symposium held in Rio de Janeiro in July-August 2006 as part of the X International ABRALIC Conference.

The Symposium featured representations, across various media (film, literature, photography, etc), of exile and migration from/to Portuguese- and Spanish-speaking countries. Highlights of this symposium were a talk by the writer Nélida Piñon (awarded, among numerous other literary prizes, the Príncipe de Asturias award for Letters in 2005) and a concluding round table on exile and poetry, which will include readings by the poets present.