This Wednesday at 6.30pm, journalist and commentator Germano Almeida, journalist Isabel Lucas and writer Richard Zimler will take part in the debate ‘Are we still choosing America?’ on the aftermath of the US elections. Admission is free.

Donald Trump's entry into the race for the most powerful political office in the world in 2015 accentuated the polarisation between political ideologies and called into question values that were considered universal, at a time when ‘fake news’ and, more recently, ‘deep fakes’, make it increasingly difficult to distinguish between truth and lies, manipulation and facts.

In the wake of the recent elections that saw Donald Trump run for a second term, in this debate we will try to understand what has happened to the American dream, to the ideal of the promised land, to the values that America brought to the world through culture, from cinema to music.

What can this change mean for the Western world, moulded in the aftermath of the Second World War by American culture and influence? Is the American Dream alive, or could it turn into a nightmare?

The debate features:

Germano Almeida, a journalist specialising in US politics since 2003, author, among many other books, of ‘This Is Not Quite a US President - Donald Trump in the White House. A diary of the years of American turmoil’.

Isabel Lucas, a journalist and literary critic who has reported on and interviewed some of the most celebrated American authors and has travelled around the United States. She is the author, among others, of the book ‘Journey to the American Dream’, in which she explored the American condition, its myths, paradoxes, fears and weaknesses, but also its greatness and capacity for reinvention.

Richard Zimler, a multi-award-winning writer born in the United States in 1956 and based in Portugal since 1990. Since 1996, he has published 12 novels, a collection of short stories and eight books for children, and his work has been translated into 23 languages.