Hay Festival Cartagena 2024

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha (United States / Palestine) poet, essayist, and translator. She is author of the poetry book Something About Living, winner of the 2024 National Book Award, as well as Kaan and her Sisters. She was the translator and curator of the 2022 series “Poems from Palestine” at the Baffler magazine. In 2024 she curated a year-long subscription of Palestinian poetry books with Open Books, Seattle’s poetry-only bookstore. Lena spent ten years working with journalists and editors as a volunteer for Seattle's Arab American community organizations. She helped to tell the stories of people living between two homelands, people who speak in translation and navigate the realities of long wars. Odette Yidi David is a Palestinian-Colombian researcher and adjunct professor at Universidad del Norte. 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. Ochy Curiel (Dominican Republic), activist and Latin American and Caribbean feminist theorist, social anthropologist and singer-songwriter. She is a spokesperson for autonomous, lesbian, antiracists and decolonial feminism. 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 (Dominican Republic), Afro-Caribbean philosopher and writer and decolonial feminist.

Consecutive interpretation from French to Spanish available

This year we celebrate 20 years in Colombia: two decades of conversations, debates, questions, music, film, photography and books. Through the voices of some of the festival’s most iconic guests, as well as those who make this great festival of ideas possible, we mark the date and wish a long life to the Hay Festival in Colombia through this special documentary.

Duration: 1 hour, 23 minutes

Direction: Gustavo Gordillo

Richard Ford (United States), winner of the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature, 2016, published his most recent novel, Be Mine, recently. In the book he returns to the character of Frank Bascombe, and through him to the themes of happiness and denial, completing a social history of the baby boomer generation. Author of, among other novels, The Sportswriter, the bestselling Canada and the novel Independence Day, which won the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN / Faulkner Fiction Award. His work has been translated into at least 28 languages, and he very recently won the Prix Femina Étranger in France. In conversation with the Colombian novelist Juan Gabriel Vásquez.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

In conversation with Claudia Gurisatti, two experts will talk about the multiplicity of contemporary realities. The civil engineer and economist, Alejandro Gaviria (Colombia), was Deacon of the Economics Faculty at the University of the Andes and Assistant Director of the National Planning Department. An outstanding researcher and author of novels and essays, his latest book, El desdén de los dioses, meditates on genetic modification, artificial intelligence, ideological extremes and climate change. Bruce Mac Master (Colombia) is an Economics graduate from the University of the Andes, co-founder in 2004 of the Granitos de Paz Foundation and boardmember of ISA, ISAGEN, Colombia Telecomunicaciones and Bancóldex; he is also the author of El continente de los países resignados.

In 2025, the Hay Festival celebrates 20 years of conversations and thought in Colombia. To mark the anniversary, we have run a collaborative project in which Colombian society has helped us to put the twenty key questions for our time. We reflect on the importance of culture and literature, based on the questions: What value does fiction have for society? How can we render visible and learn from non-hegemonic narratives? What role does art play in the construction of a more peaceful, empathetic society that is aware of its challenges? With Piedad Bonnett (Colombia), Charlotte Higgins (United Kingdom), Nicola Lagioia (Italy) and Cristina Rivera Garza (Mexico) in conversation with Pilar Reyes.

Interpretation from English to Spanish available

Two participants who find inspiration in the past will talk to Guido Tamayo. Laura Ortiz Gómez (Colombia) studied Literature at the Universidad Javeriana and did a Master’s in Creative Writing at the Tres de Febrero University in Argentina. In her new work, Indócil, the author explores the history of the “broom strike”, a popular movement that broke out in Argentina in 1907, when women, inhabitants of the conventillos of Buenos Aires, decided to stop paying their rent, and took to the streets. The educator and political activist, Raúl Quinto, has a degree in History of Art from the University of Granada. In 2004 he received the Andalusia Prize for Young Poets, run by the Instituto Andaluz de la Juventud, for his poetry book La piel del vigilante. His historical novel Martinete del rey sombra, won the Cálamo Prize in the Otra Mirada category, as well as the Critics’ Prize for Spanish Fiction.

Justin Torres (United States), novelist and UCLA lecturer, is a Guggenheim Foundation fellow, and won a National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction, among others, for his book Blackouts. Through stories and memories exchanged between two characters, Blackouts brings to light a hidden history and explores the gaps left by forgetting and censorship, interlacing biography, fiction and history with a biting satire, reflecting a resistance against self-censorship in queer literature. In conversation with Gloria Susana Esquivel.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

In 2025, the Hay Festival celebrates 20 years of conversations and thought in Colombia. To mark the anniversary, we have run a collaborative project in which Colombian society has helped us to put the twenty key questions for our time. In a context in which the environmental crisis and climate change have become urgent matters, festival guests urge us to reconsider our relationship with the planet based on the following questions: How can we change existing narratives to tackle the climate emergency? How can we make the exploitation of raw materials compatible with their climate impact? How can extensive farming be made compatible with protecting biodiversity in Colombia? Peter Frankopan (United Kingdom), writer and historian; Virginia Mendoza (Spain), journalist, writer and anthropologist; Gustavo Ulcué Campo (Colombia), Nasa film and television producer. In conversation with Rosie Boycott.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

In the last decade, Latin America has shown itself to be a region that leads in terms of racial justice and the fight against racism, with a wave of collective actions. We talk about them and their territorial characteristics with Bocafloja (Mexico), an interdisciplinary artist and curator who, in his work, tackles themes such as critical race theory, the Global South, coloniality and the African diaspora in Latin America; Tanya Hernández (United States), a specialist in comparative racial relations and anti-discrimination law, and author of Inocencia racial: desenmascarando la antinegritud de los latinos y la lucha por la igualdad; and Maricruz Rivera Clemente, founder of Corporación Piñones se Integra COPI and co-founder of Corredor Afro in Piñones in northern Puerto Rico, and activist against the discrimination of the Afro-descendent population. In conversation with Agustín Laó-Montes.