“The Beauty of Change”: A talk between Helen Oyeyemi and Valerie Miles

As part of the “Writing the Prado” programme – an international literary residency sponsored by the Loewe Foundation and the Prado Museum – a public event will be held featuring acclaimed British writer Helen Oyeyemi in conversation with Valerie Miles, editor of Granta en español magazine. They will discuss Oyeyemi’s work, her approach to art, and how it has influenced her writing.

The talk will take place on Tuesday, 24 June 2025, at 6:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the Prado Museum. Free admission tickets will be available for collection from 6:00 p.m. on the day of the event at the museum’s Ticket Desk 1. 

The event will be livestreamed on the museum’s YouTube channel

On Tuesday, 24 June 2025, author Helen Oyeyemi, currently in residence at the Prado Museum as part of the Writing the Prado programme, will speak with writer and Granta en español editor Valerie Miles to discuss her work – which has been translated into fourteen languages –, her relationship with art, and the ways in which it informs her literary practice.

The recipient of the Somerset Maugham and the PEN Open Book awards, Helen Oyeyemi has relocated to Madrid for four weeks, making the Prado her centre of activity and contemplation. Following this period of immersion, she will produce a text inspired by the museum’s collection, exploring the expressive connections between fiction and the visual arts. The piece will be published as part of the museum’s editorial series.

The talk will take place as part of the “Writing the Prado” programme, a high-profile literary residency that fosters daily contact with the museum’s collections of paintings, sculptures, and other works of art, as well as with the team of professionals who work there. The residency invites writers with firmly established literary careers and authors of international prestige who are at the mid-point of their careers. Previous participants include Nobel Laureate in Literature (2003) John M. Coetzee, who participated in the summer of 2023; Mexican writer Chloe Aridjis in autumn 2023; Polish author and Nobel Laureate Olga Tokarczuk in April 2024; and Irish writer John Banville in autumn 2024.

Helen Oyeyemi (Nigeria, 1984) is a British writer based in Prague. Known for the originality and depth of her work, which has been translated into 14 languages, she has established herself as a distinctive voice in contemporary literature. 

Since her debut, Oyeyemi has been recognised for her innovative and experimental narrative style. She is the author of 11 novels, including Gingerbread (2019), Parasol Against the Axe (2024) and most recently, A New New Me (2025).

She is the recipient of the Somerset Maugham and the PEN Open Book awards, and her novel Peaces (2021) was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize.

Valerie Miles (New York, 1963) is an editor, writer, and translator with a doctorate in Literature and Visual Imagination. She curated the exhibition of Roberto Bolaño’s archive at the Centro de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona (CCCB) and has edited 28 issues of Granta in both Spanish and English. Her book A Thousand Forests in One Acorn, along with her work as a translator and writer, have received wide recognition, including a PEN Translates award, the Southwestern Review Essay Prize, and a nomination for the prestigious Dublin Literary Award. She has contributed to The New Yorker, The New York Times, El País, La Vanguardia, and The Paris Review. She chairs the Selection Committee for the “Writing the Prado” Fellowship, where she also serves as literary adviser and editor of the fiction collection.

“Writing the Prado”. An international literary residency sponsored by the Loewe Foundation

To foster excellence in artistic creation and encourage experimentation and dialogue between literature and the visual arts, the Prado Museum serves as a temporary home for active literary creation through its “Writing the Prado” residency, sponsored by the Loewe Foundation. Every year since 2023, the Prado Museum has hosted two internationally recognised writers, each in residence for three weeks to two months. Residents are given a dedicated workspace and full access to the museum’s studios, library, collection galleries, and professional departments. This unique context offers daily opportunities for exchange with curators, conservators, technicians, administrators, and museum staff, and, of course, with visitors themselves.