Plots, Paths, Polyphony: Writing and Mapping European Cities – City Writing Symposium

On 14-15 May 2026, we brought together academics, writers, translators, curators and digital mappers to explore how cities are written, represented and reimagined across literature, cartography and urban practice. 

Framed around the idea that European cities are shaped not only by their physical structures but also by movement, migration, and layered histories, the symposium examined how literary texts, mapping practices and urban experiences intersect. Across panels, readings, interviews, creative sessions and a walking tour, participants explored how storytelling ‘plots’ the city, how writers trace ‘paths’ through urban space, and how multiple voices create a ‘polyphony’ of urban meaning. 

The programme featured academics and writers from UCL and beyond, including Laimonas Briedis, Duncan Hay, Sam Griffiths, Inga Vidugirytė, Annika Lindskog, Rebecca Hutcheon, Uilleam Blacker, and Emily Butterworth, alongside creative sessions led by Mererid Puw Davies and Tim Beasley-Murray. The symposium also launched the recent anthology The Book of Bratislava (Comma Press, 2026), in conversation with editors, translators and publisher. 

We were also delighted to welcome our 2026 UCL Writer in Residence, award-winning German Georgian writer Nino Haratischwili, who was in conversation with journalist Matthew Janney. developed with the European Literature Network and the Goethe-Institut London.  

The symposium formed part of our ongoing project Lost & Found: A European Literary Map of London.  

On Friday afternoon, a European Literary London walking tour through Bloomsbury extended the symposium’s themes into the city itself, tracing literary and spatial connections on the ground, drawing from entries by a range of European writers, who have written about London across three centuries, in eight different European languages. 

The symposium fed directly into the European Writers’ Festival 2026, held on 16–17 May at the British Library. The festival brought together writers from across Europe for two days of panels, performancesand conversations on contemporary European writing. 

The event was supported by UCL Grand Challenges, the Lithuanian Culture Institute and the Embassy of Lithuania in the UK. We also remain grateful to the Goethe-Institut London, EUNIC London, and the European Literature Network for their support of our Writer in Residence 2026. 

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