Javier Pérez de Albéniz in conversation with Vicente Jiménez

All-terrain journalist is a good way of summing up Javier Pérez de Albéniz. He has been a music critic for El País, where he also wrote sports reports and features in the Sunday supplement. At the newspaper El Mundo, he was part of the team that created La Revista, and he spent a decade there, writing current affairs and travel reports. His blog, El Descodificador, dedicated to television and all that this medium has done in favour of the intellectual deterioration of human beings, has run for over 20 years. This work of social critique won the prestigious Congreso de Periodismo Digital de Huesca Prize in 2009.

Thanks to his enormous capacity to make the most of his time, Pérez de Albéniz has, through these years of intense work, managed to travel without haste, read without pause, listen to music at a deafening volume and, you knew this was coming, write a bunch of books. These include the first Springsteen biography in Spanish, (1986), followed by Lugares poco recomendables and Diez mil kilómetros a través de África, El lince ibérico and La guerra del lobo.

In 2015, he hit a bump in the road; being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. So, at the age of 56, he set off on a different journey in search of ways to control the disease and continue to enjoy life. A game awaited him at the crossroads, to which he sold his soul and to which he dedicates the book, Los Reveses (una historia personal sobre parkinson y ping-pong); a declaration of love for the sport that serves as therapy and at which, in three short years, he managed to become runner-up in the world championship. He won gold in mixed doubles at the 2023 Scottish International Open.

Hay Festival offers Pérez de Albéniz an international, intergenerational challenge. First he will be in conversation with Vicente Jiménez, director of As. Then, he has agreed to face off at the ping-pong table with the UK ambassador to Spain, Hugh Elliott; with local table tennis coach Paco Gilarranz, and Adrián Jerónimo Pérez, a local young player. Beltrán Gambier will be the substitute player of the challenger.

The author will sign his books at the end of the event.

Event in Spanish