Colombia Digital 2021

Four authors talk to Leonard Benardo about their writing, talking about the particular perspective of their work with respect to current social questions. With Isabella Hammad (United Kingdom), author of The Parisian and Enter Ghost; Viet Thanh Nguyen (United States), winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Sympathizer; Colson Whitehead (United States), winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Underground Railroad; and Javier Zamora (El Salvador / United States), author of Solito.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

Colm Tóibín (Ireland) is a novelist, journalist and educator, and is one of the most influential writers in contemporary literature. Throughout his career, he has received numerous awards, including the E. M. Forster Award in 1995 and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for The Master (2004). His most recent work, Long Island (2024), the highly-awaited sequel to Brooklyn (2009), explores the life of Eilis Lacey two decades after her move to Long Island, dealing with the impact of the past on the present. He will talk to Charlotte Higgins.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

We celebrate two complementary spaces, the archive and the library, exploring experiences in different parts of the world: with Malose Malahlela (South Africa), cultural manager and artist interested in socially-committed artistic practices, and co-founder and co-director of the Keleketla! Library and cultural centre; Polly Russell (United Kingdom) of the British Library, shares with us her experience of curating archives and exhibitions with a gender focus; and with Gustavo Ulcué Campo (Colombia), of the Nasa nation and expert in archives and heritage. In conversation with Adriana Martínez.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

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, Camila Sosa Villada (Argentina) will talk to Margarita Valencia about her book Tesis sobre una domesticación. The protagonist, a trans actress, finds she is trapped by marriage and social convention.

Those attending must have read the book

Yomi Adegoke is a British writer and journalist, author of The List, winner of the Groucho Maverick and Marie Claire Future Shapers awards, and included on the Forbes 30 under 30 list. Johny Pitts (United Kingdom) is a television presenter, writer and photographer, as well as an editor at the electronic magazine Afropean.com, an essential guide for the Afro-European diaspora, and now a book: Afropean. Notes from Black Europe. In conversation with Mónica Moreno Figueroa.

Consecutive interpretation from English to Spanish available

The writer and journalist Leila Guerriero (Argentina) presents her book La llamada: un retrato, a profile of the Argentine Silvia Labayru, a member of the armed group Montoneros and who in 1976 was kidnapped, tortured and raped at the Escuela de Mecánica la Armada clandestine detention centre, where thousands of people were held and murdered during the dictatorship. Labayru survived the experience, and was interviewed by Guerriero, beginning in 2021, while waiting for the outcome of the first trial for crimes of sexual violence committed against women who disappeared during the dictatorship, at which Labayru was a plaintiff. In conversation with Ana Cristina Restrepo.

Author of The Nutmeg’s Curse, a powerful work of history, essay, testimony and polemic, Amitav Ghosh (India) makes a powerful criticism of Western society through the book. Author of works of fiction and non-fiction translated into several languages, he has also received a range of awards and accolades, including five honorary doctorates; he was the first English-language writer to receive the Jnanpith Award, India’s highest literary honour. Ghosh has also been a panellist for the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland and the Venice Film Festival (2001). Smoke and Ashes: Opium hidden histories (Humo y cenizas: historias ocultas del opio), sobre el impacto del comercio del opio en la historia global y la de su propia familia. In 2024, the author published Smoke and Ashes: Opium hidden histories, on the impact of the opium trade throughout global history as well as his family's history. In conversation with Leonard Benardo.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

Nicola Lagioia (Italy) won the Strega Award in 2014 for The City of the Living, translated into 15 languages. He contributes to all the major Italian cultural media, including La Stampa, La Reppublica, Il Venerdì and Internazionale, and is one of the presenters of Pagina3, a daily programme on Radio3. In The City of the Living, Lagioia examines guilt, responsibility and that fragile border which we believe keeps us safe from committing awful crimes; he discovers echoes in his own youth and a human dimension of evil that is painful to look at. In conversation with Camila Osorio.

Simultaneous interpretation from Italian to Spanish available

The Afro-Latin American movements have been building regional and national links since the 1990s, rising up against racism. According to the 2017 Global Atlas on Violence, for every 100 people murdered in Brazil, 71 are black. Two participants will talk to Flavia Rios about how to portray, and also to change, this reality through art. Osmundo Pinho (Brazil) offers, in his work, detailed ethnographic description, and analyses racist patterns and practices in his country, particularly in Salvador (Bahia). In conversation with Flavia Rios.

Simultaneous interpretation from Portuguese to Spanish available

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