Hay Festival Cartagena 2025

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? Amitav Ghosh (India), writer and thinker; 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.

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, María Dueñas (Spain) will talk to Ana María Aponte about her book Sira, which tells more of the story of the intrepid protagonist of The Time In Between.

Those attending must have read the book