I flew in from Toronto. My latest book Stalin‘s Daughter was published in 23 countries but nothing compared to its reception in Latin America. This was entirely because of the Hay Festival. I was invited to Medellín, interviewed on stage by the wonderful Ingrid Bejerman about the complex art of biography and then went to Cartagena where the audience numbered 800 people and I sold over 100 books. I always tell my fellow Canadian writers that Latin Americans are the best readers. I went next to Querétaro, Mexico, where the person who interviewed me was Elianna Kan. Because her parents escaped Russia in the 1960s, my book touched her deeply, which I could feel in her brilliant questions. I also conducted a writing workshop with young Mexican writers whose enthusiasm was exciting. Before coming to Arequipa we Canadians visited Machu Picchu, me for the second time. It was like walking among the gods. What a cultural patrimony!
I look forward to the Hay Festival Arequipa which I have been told is the best of them all. I want to hear Mario Vargas Llosa, a writer I have always admired.
My attachment to Latin America and its writers, some of whom I have known personally like Eduardo Galeano and Tomás Eloy Martínez, is long-standing. I always tell people there are more Nobel Prizes for Literature in Latin America than in the US and Canada. I would tell my younger self that writing is a privilege. You must think of it as your dialogue with the world.
Rosemary Sullivan will be part of the Hay Festival Arequipa 2018: