The literary extravaganza during the last week of March will see museums, cultural centres and hotels across the city welcoming Belgian and international writers for a host of events ranging from breakfast discussions to evening readings. Passa Porta aims to bring the literary side of the city to life.

In town for the four-day event will be Turkey’s Elif Shafak, who was prosecuted by her government for the opinions expressed by her characters in The Bastard of Istanbul; Hungary’s Péter Nádas, whose Book of Memories has invited comparison with Thomas Mann and Marcel Proust; and the UK’s Alan Hollinghurst, whose The Line of Beauty won the Booker prize in 2004.

Along with authors, you’ll find talks and performances by philosophers, musicians and even Belgium’s former prime minister Guy Verhofstadt.

Shop windows along Dansaertstraat will become venues for literary discussions, the opera house will host a lecture on key themes in György Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre and the Arenberg cinema will be the setting for a talk on film and literature. Flemish writers Bart Moeyaert and David van Reybrouck will present their favourite pieces at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in a programme exploring intersections between art and literature.

“It’s an opportunity to discover writers and places,” says Sigrid Bousset, co-director of Passa Porta’s management committee. Bousset has worked with the group since its origins as Het Beschrijf just over a decade ago. At that time, “Brussels didn’t have a literary face,” she explains. “It was a city of dance and theatre.”

That started to change when Paul Buekenhout founded Het Beschrijf in 1998. It organised a festival of literature in Brussels and promoted Dutch-language literature at home and abroad – for example, the group markets translated work of Flemish authors at international book fairs. Gradually the idea developed of establishing a House of Literature, along the lines of those found in German cities.

“We were nomads,” explains Bousset. “We wanted to have an identity, a place where the literary scene comes together, somewhere to meet writers from all over the world.” And so in 2004 Het Beschrijf moved into the Dansaertstraat, and the Francophone community was brought on board with the foundation of a French-language counterpart, Entrez Lire. Together, they opened the bookshop, along with a small gallery and living quarters for writers and translators in residence. In short, Passa Porta was born.

The name alludes to the idea of open doors and is a play on the word passport. “We give writers a passport to cross borders and come to Brussels,” says Bousset. Het Beschrijf hosts 15 writers every year, both in its Brussels apartment and in Vollezele in the Flemish countryside. One of the current writers-in-residence is Czech poet Petr Borkovec, whose stay coincides with the Czech Republic holding the European Union presidency.

Het Beschrijf also seeks to expand this international network through exchange programmes. For 2009, they are organising an exchange with Morocco, partly to help introduce Moroccan literature to Belgium. The idea is to make it an annual event, focussing on a different country each year.

Passa Porta makes a point of finding new talents and providing them the means to develop through master classes, such as was the case for Flemish-Moroccan writer Rachida Lamrabet, who has since gone on to publish two books.

The festival, which is held every two years, brings together these different strands – local and international aspects, well-known authors, new discoveries and a look at literature from different perspectives.

The theme this year is “The World is a Workplace” – a place where things are built and created and are always changing. Posters are being put up on construction sites around the city with quotes from participating authors underneath the words “Te lezen/A lire”, in the same style as “Te huur/A louer” signs to rent an apartment.

The biggest day of the festival is the final one, 29 March, when 5,000 people are expected to attend the numerous events. The programme is divided into one-hour sessions so you can easily select one event from each slot to suit your tastes. A pass costing €7 gives you access to the entire day’s activities. Approximately one-third of the programme is Dutch, one-third French and the remainder in other languages, including English.

The littlest of readers haven’t been forgotten: Flemish illustrator Tom Schamp will give a creative tour at the TKunstenhuis based around the illustrations for his children’s books Otto rijdt heen en weer (Otto drives there and back) and Otto in de Stad (Otto in the city), which are full of allusions to Brussels.

Bousset calls the evening programmes “the most adventurous part”. Friday night’s “The European Constitution in Verse” is the culmination of a project in which the Brussels Poetry Collective worked with other European poets to create a long poem combining European enthusiasm and criticism (see sidebar).

The following evening, 10 writers from across the globe offer their views on how changes in the world order have impacted identity, language and literature. Speakers include Ingo Schulze on Germany since reunification, Zoé Valdés on her native Cuba, Joseph O'Neill on post-9/11 America and Nawal El Saadawi, who gives a literary voice to women in the Arab world.

One of the joys of literature for Bousset is that it “takes you out of your own world and puts you in another context,” she says. “When you read, you see how characters deal with emotions and make choices. They act as examples of how life can be lived. You discover another vision of the world.”

www.passaporta.be