Hay Festival Cartagena 2024

Jon Lee Anderson (United States) is a world renowned war reporter. As a staff writer for the New Yorker, he has reported all around the globe, covering war zones, coups d'etat, natural disasters and has profiled world leaders. He is the author of many books, including the most comprehensive biography of Che Guevara, and would be presenting He decidido declararme marxista, his latest book, that compiles his most celebrated reportage. 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. Author of The City of the Living, in which Lagioia explores guilt, responsibility and that fragile border that, we believe, keeps us safe from playing the role of executioners; he discovers echoes of his own youth and a human dimension of evil that is not easy to glimpse. In his latest book, Ferocity, he breaks down and defines our merciless contemporary world and weaves a plot that explores the ferocity latent in each individual, trapping the reader in a labyrinth of secrets and lies.. 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. Osmundo Pinho (Brazil) will talk to Flavia Rios about how to portray, and also to change, this reality through art. He offers, in his work, detailed ethnographic description, and analyses racist patterns and practices in his country, particularly in Salvador (Bahia).

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

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, the last part of his trilogy Todo arde from the narrative universe of the 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 Juan Lozano.

Two Afro-descendant writers, Yurieth Romero from Santa Marta and Gilbert Shang Ndi from Cameroon, will engage in a conversation with Paula Moreno Zapata, author of Soñar lo Imposible and El Poder de lo Invisible, about the essential integration of literature produced by Black people into contemporary literary canons. Yurieth Romero is the first Black writer from the Caribbean to publish a book, Las Visitantes, under the Alfaguara imprint of Penguin Random House. On the other hand, Gilbert Shang Ndi is a prominent author and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, recognized for his research on topics such as African dictatorship novels, the poetics of the body, violence in literature, visual culture, and cyber literature. In this conversation, both writers will share their work and personal perspectives, and discuss how the invisibility of Afro-descendant authors in Latin America contributes to one of the deepest roots of inequality in the region. Additionally, they will explore how the African continent has emerged in the past decade as a literary powerhouse in the global arena.

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 Rosie Boycott.

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, 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 English 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.