Organized by Casa de las Americas cultural institution, the Pierre Veger Foundation and the Center for Caribbean Studies, the colloquium, running until March 17, will deal with the vast work of the European Africanist and his mark in the Americas, particularly in Cuba and Brazil.

At the opening of the event, Casa de las Americas president Roberto Fernandez Rematar welcomed Gilberto Pedreira Freitas de Sá, president of the Foundation and spoke about the Verger’s close relations with ethnologists from Cuba, to where he traveled during the 1950s.

Freitas de Sa spoke about the life and work of the French anthropologist and the reasons that led him into traveling across the world.

The morning session of the event closed with the screening of the documentary film Pierre Fatumbi Verger: messenger between two worlds by Lula Buarque de Hollanda.

Created in 1988, the Pierre Verger Foundation is headquartered in the house where Verger used to live.