Colombia Digital 2021

At its book clubs, Hay Festival Cartagena offers intimate encounters with a selection of festival guests. These are spaces to talk in greater depth about recent work by some of the festival’s participants. At this event, Piedad Bonnett (Colombia) will talk to Ana María Aponte about her book, La mujer incierta, an autobiographical work that reveals the writer’s different layers: women, human being, creature with feelings. An exercise in observation and reconstruction of identity.

Those attending must have read the book

The journalist and writer Juan Gómez-Jurado (Spain) is one of the finest thriller writers in his language, and a bestselling author whose work has been translated into over forty languages. His Red Queen trilogy has been made into a Prime series, and is one of the most popular Spanish-language series of all time. Todo muere is the last part of his acclaimed Reina Roja series, and a long-awaited ending to one of the most read and loved contemporary sagas in the Spanish language. In conversation with Mónica Jaramillo.

Two participants who explore African and Afro-descendent tales will talk to Paula Moreno Zapata. Gilbert Shang Ndi (Cameroon), author and Doctor in Comparative Literature, is a researcher and expert in matters such as the African dictatorship novel, poetics of the body, violence in literature, visual culture and cybernetic literature. Yurieth Romero (Colombia) is the author of Las visitantes, a transmedia project made up of a book of short stories, a television series and a film.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

Jennifer Ackerman (United Kingdom), the author of The Genius of Birds, returns with her new book, What an Owl Knows. The tales of the world are full of owls: for different cultures it has represented wisdom, mystery, or even presages of death. Popular culture also features the owl, which appears in the Harry Potter and Winnie the Pooh stories. These birds, which are able to turn their heads a full 180°, have a very special anatomy, but why are these creatures of the night so famous? This new book is a mixture of natural history treatise, a study of behaviour, and a look at the symbolism of these extraordinary animals. In conversation with Santiago Madriñán.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

We talk about the territory and its community management, about the link between the culture and history of peoples, with their places of residence, and the need for self-management shared among inhabitants. With Weildler Guerra (Colombia) Wayuu anthropologist; Rogelio Mejía (Colombia), Arhuaco social leader and activist who has worked to encourage the export of organic produce and backpacks from the Sierra Nevada; Olimpia Palmar (Colombia), Wayuu expert in human rights, communicator and activist; and Gustavo Ulcué Campo (Colombia), Nasa film producer and activist. They will talk to Martin von Hildebrand.

What happens when women challenge power? In conversation with Gloria Susana Esquivel, two writers explore, through fiction and non-fiction respectively, examples of cooperation among women. Txell Feixas (Spain) has been a correspondent in the Middle East, based in Beirut, for the Corporació Catalana de Mitjans Audiovisuals and she is the author of the book Mujeres valientes, which deals with the struggles of women during the conflicts of the Middle East. She also received the 2024 National Journalism Prize for her book Aliadas. Laura Ortiz Gómez (Colombia) is the author of Indócil, a work of history that explores the “broom strike”, a popular movement that occurred in Argentina in 1907 when women, inhabitants of the conventillos of Buenos Aires, refused to pay their rent and took to the streets.

Salman Rushdie (India / United Kingdom / United States) is a major figure in contemporary literature and a very prolific author. His Midnight’s Children won the Booker Prize in 1981, and was deemed the best of all winners on the 25th and 40th anniversaries of the prize’s creation. He has been the President of PEN America, a member of the UK’s Royal Society of Literature, is a French Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters, and was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time in 2023. On 12 August 2022, he suffered an attack that nearly killed him, 30 years after the proclamation of a fatwa following the publication of The Satanic Verses. The author relates these events, his recovery, and gives a powerful reflection on literature, art and freedom of expression in his most recent publication, Knife. He will talk about this and his most recent novel, Victory City, with Juan Gabriel Vásquez.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

Wolfram Eilenberger (Germany) is a philosopher, journalist and writer. His passion is the application of philosophical ideas in everyday life, whether politics, culture or sport. Founding Editor of Philosophie Magazin, he has published Time of the Magicians. The Invention of Modern Thought 1919-1929, and now presents Geister der Gegenwart, an exploration of the thought of Theodor W. Adorno, Susan Sontag, Michel Foucault and Paul Feyerabend. The book follows the path of a set of ideas that are essential for our times: from dismantling the myth of blind faith, to the progress of conspiracy theories; from sexual liberation to the most reductionist wokeness. In conversation with Óscar Guardiola-Rivera.

Simultaneous interpretation from German to Spanish available

María Negroni (Argentina) is an Argentine writer and poet, with a doctorate in Latin American Literature from Columbia University in New York. His work covers various genres, including poetry, essay and fiction, and she has received important fellowships, including the Guggenheim and the Rockefeller. Her publications include the poetry book Islandia, which won an award from the PEN American Center, and the novels El sueño de Úrsula and La Anunciación. Her latest books are La idea natural (2024) and Utilidad de las estrellas (2024), which presents a fusion of austere and minimalist language with intense, expressionist images. She will talk about this book with Mario Jursich.

Isabella Hammad (Palestine / UK) is the author of the novels The Parisian and Enter Ghost. Selected in 2023 as one of the best young British fiction writers by Granta magazine, she has been a Rockefeller and Lannan fellow. In The Parisian, Hammad explores the early 20th-century history of Palestine through the story of a young man who studies in France during the First World War, and returns to his country to find himself surrounded by a new conflict. In conversation with Odette Yidi David, (Colombia / Palestine).

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

There are 134 million Afro-descendent people living in Latin America, but most of this population lives in a state of inequality. How can we change this scenario? Ana María Belique (Dominican Republic) is the co-founder and leader of Reconoci.do, a movement for empowering Afro-descendent Dominicans in their struggle for equality and nationality rights, and to be free of racial discrimination; she is also the author of the children’s book La muñeca de Dieula. Lyonel Trouillot, born in Port-au Prince, teaches Creole and French literature. As well as publishing the literary magazine Demembre, he also offers participants the chance to seek advice from experienced writers at his Ateliers du Jeudi Soir workshops. Author of La belle amour humaine, he won the 2012 Geneva Book Fair Literary Prize. In conversation with Yuderkys Espinosa.

Consecutive interpretation from French to Spanish available