A journey through the literary works of María Dueñas, one of Spain and Latin America’s best-selling authors. Cities such as Tetuán, New York and Jerez have played a vital role in her literature from her first novel El tiempo entre costuras (2009) through to Sira (2021). The characters in her stories are rooted in the spaces they inhabit, which often subtly condition their actions, decisions and what they say. Three more novels and a prodigious decade later, more than three million of her books have been sold in fifteen languages. The author is also a professor of English Literature and a researcher. She will be in conversation with Ana Gavín, Director of Editorial Relations at Grupo Planeta.

At the end of the event, the author will sign copies of her books

Event in Spanish

Culture as an engine for development and cultural cooperation is an essential instrument for the Spain brand. The Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) reaches two million people in 130 countries and supports emerging artists, the conservation of cultural heritage and promotes the most contemporary artistic expressions.

To discuss this, Miki Leal will be in conversation with Santiago Herrero. Leal is a painter and artist of international renown whose art is characterised by fantasies and dreamlike expressions with pop influences. He has participated in many exhibitions in Spanish galleries and museums, as well as international spaces, such as Track 16 Gallery (Santa Monica, USA); Galerie Maribel López, (Berlin); 3+1 Arte Contemporánea, and the Real Academia de España en Roma (Italy). Leal will talk about his time in New York on a joint programme with AECID.

The diplomat Santiago Herrero has been an active, inspiring and provocative cultural agent for many years, both in the private like the public. His collaboration with the film director and producer Kike Maíllo has also allowed him to explore his role as an actor. Both discussed this experience at the Hay Festival in Segovia in 2023. He is currently director of Cultural and Scientific Relations at AECID.

There will be a reception at 13:00. The event will start afterwards.

Event in Spanish

Journalism is fighting fires on several fronts, including, since the loss of the ad-driven model, the still unresolved issue of what to do about the journalistic format, along with the crisis generated by value of truth seeming to have disappeared in a post-truth landscape. The deterioration of liberal democracies accompanies the crises in journalism as identity tribalism, with its accompanying post-ideological polarisation, is moving towards a mode of moralising that disregards facts and takes opinions as truths, with those who dissent cast as morally reprehensible. What danger does activist journalism place journalism in?

The Andalusian journalist Teodoro León Gross will discuss the subject with three leading Spanish journalists: Pepa Bueno, Carlos Franganillo and Rafa Latorre. Gross has worked with newspapers such as El País, El Mundo, and ABC, as well as various Joly Group newspapers in Andalusia. He currently directs and presents the news programme Mesa de análisis on Canal Sur Televisión. Bueno, editor at El País, has also hosted the programme Hoy por Hoy on Cadena Ser. She is the recipient of numerous awards such as the Premio Micrófono de Oro (2008) and the Francisco Cerecedo Award (2010). Franganillo, winner of the Ondas Award (2019), the gold medal at the New York Festival (2014), and the award for best correspondent from the Club Internacional de Prensa (2016), has worked at TVE, from where he has just moved to Mediaset España to direct and present Telecinco News. Latorre began his career in the written press, but soon turned to radio. He has directed and presented the Onda Cero programme La Brújula since 2022, and is a regular columnist for the El Mundo newspaper.

Event in Spanish

The Korean Ha-Joon Chang is an economist specialising in development, the branch of economics which seeks to improve processes of growth in low-income countries. His writings and published works are particularly critical of the formulas used by the most developed countries, and defend state intervention and subsidies. Chang's critical focus is on globalisation and the free market, which he believes were largely responsible for the devastating crisis of 2008. In fact, Chang - who has taught at Cambridge University - is the author of a theory of industrial policy which falls between central planning and an unrestrained free market. Among the many books he has written and which have been translated into Spanish are Kicking Away the Ladder (2009); 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism (2012); Edible Economics (2023). Chang was awarded the Wassily Leontief Prize in 2005.

Helena de Bertodano is a British journalist specialising in celebrity interviews and profiles, as well as features and travel articles for publications such as The Sunday Times, The Times, The Telegraph, The Observer, Harper's Bazaar and Marie Claire. She has interviewed over 1,000 people over the past 25 years, including the Dalai Lama, Meryl Streep, George Soros, Ringo Starr, George Best, Yehudi Menuhin and Jacinda Ardern.

At the end of the event, the author will sign copies of his works

Event in English with simultaneous translation into Spanish

Film director Stephen Frears has played a key role in constructing and shaping British identity through film. From his beginnings as a theatre assistant, then as a director at the BBC and finally, as a filmmaker in his own name, Frears dazzled with My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), and gone on to portray themes ranging from class inequalities in Hidden Business (2002) to the pomp and pageantry of the monarchy in The Queen (2006) and Queen Victoria and Abdul (2017). He ventured into comedic, voyeuristic cinema in Dangerous Liaisons (1988) and adaptations of contemporary bestsellers such as High Fidelity (2000). He has given us westerns, noir, comedy and thrillers, with his meticulous attention to mise-en-scène, characters, intelligent and ironic dialogue, without forgetting his commitments to social and political issues. Throughout his career, Frears has said he wanted to make "to make the kind of smart mainstream films he grew up with but now seem endangered by the blockbuster.” With a transatlantic career, he has twice been nominated for an Oscar for best director, and has won BAFTA and EMMY awards. Of his films, The Queen won an Oscar, and Dangerous Liaisons won three. He released the TV miniseries The State of the Union in 2019.

Frears will talk about his career with Marta Medina, screenwriter and film critic at El Confidencial and a regular contributor to Historia de nuestro cine on TVE 2.

Presented by Caroline Michel, chair of Hay Festival Foundation.

Event in English with simultaneous translation into Spanish.