Hay Festival Querétaro 2023

The Mexican writer Tania Tagle presents her first book of essays, Germinal, which contains ten years of reflections on pregnancy, birth and raising her first child. The author will talk about the ideas that have given form to the experience of being a mother since classical antiquity, revisiting concepts that range from the monstrous to the miraculous, in order to think about how these affect and determine the current experience of motherhood.

The main character of Mi pelo chino says that she used to find her curly hair annoying because it was unlike the hair of other girls her age. However, one day her grandfather teaches her the special care that her Chinese hair needs, and all the hairstyle possibilities it offers, because this shows how she can be beautiful in different ways. This is a story about the construction of an identity in peoples who have traditionally been ignored in national cultural production. Jumko Ogata Aguilar (Mexico) is a writer and an Afro-Mexican anti-racism activist. Originally from Veracruz, she studied Latin American Studies at the UNAM. She writes fiction, essays and film criticism. Her writings have been published in the Revista de la Universidad de México and by the British Council in Mexico, and she writes a column for Coolhuntermx. She contributed to the anthology of feminist texts Tsunami 2, published by Sexto Piso in 2020. She will talk to Tere Alcántara.

The notorious Spanish screenplay writer and director Fernando León de Aranoa will talk to Jan Martinez Ahrens about his carreer and his work Sintiéndolo mucho, a documentary on the last decade of singer Joarquin Sabina. Fernando wrote and directed the film Barrio, which tells the story of the life of a group of teenagers in a manginal neighbourhood. The movie won the Goya Awards for Best Original Screenplay and Best Director, and the Concha de Plata for Best Director at the San Sebastián Film Festival. Los lunes al sol, starring Javier Bardem, which he directed in 2002, won five Goya Awards and and the Concha de Oro for Best Film at the San Sebastián Film Festival. In 2021, El buen patrón was released, a movie directed by him featuring Javier Bardem, winner of the Goya Awards for Best Film and Best Director and selected by the Academy of Film Arts and Sciences of Spain to represent the country at the 94 Oscars, in the category of Best Foreign Language Film.

We are constantly handing over our data to companies, websites, via social media, thinking that this will help us in our everyday business… but will it really? Carissa Véliz, lecturer in Philosophy at the Institute for Ethics in AI, and a tutorial fellow at Hertford College, University of Oxford, is the author of the book Privacy is Power. Why and How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data. This is an essential text for understanding one of the most critical problems of the information age: the loss of privacy. In conversation with Eliezer Budasoff.

The British Council and Hay Festival present the series of events entitled Imagine Equity, the goal of which is to promote the contribution to cultural life of groups that are traditionally underrepresented. The intention is to create a conversation between writers of different continents so they can debate, through fiction and non-fiction, matters such as gender, sexual identity, race, ethnicity, neuronal and physical diversity, etc. With the participation of Aura García-Junco, named one of the best Spanish-language writers by Granta magazine in 2021; Sarah Ladipo Manyika (Nigeria/United Kingdom), Director of the Board of the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, California, and jury of a range of literary awards; and Maria Medem (Spain), cartoonist and illustrator, author of Por culpa de una flor (2023). They will talk to Gabriela Warkentin.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

Rosa Beltrán (Mexico), writer, publisher and translator, is a Cultural Dissemination coordinator for UNAM and the author of over a dozen books of short stories, essays and fiction, of which Radicales libres (2021) is her most recent work. The departure of her mother is the beginning of a story that the novel’s protagonist tells to her daughter, exploring a series of historical and personal events that marked the life of this character and the collective experience of at least three generations. The writer and winner of the Ojo Crítico Prize for Fiction, Aroa Moreno Durán (Spain), presents her latest novel, La bajamar. It is a story about maternities and the social and historical traumas that separate mothers and children of various generations. They will both talk to Sylvia Georgina Estrada.

Strongly against the idea that economics is only for experts, the Cambridge University professor, Ha-Joon Chang (South Korea), makes economic theory edible, and even delicious, by uniting it with his passion for cookery in his latest book, Edible Economics. The author takes the stories of ingredients from around the world to illustrate clearly and accessibly contemporary economic thinking, and challenges notions that are strongly rooted in today’s discourses, such as globalization, climate change, immigration, and austerity. In conversation with Eduardo Rabasa.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

How has the role of light in understanding the universe changed, and how is it still changing? In 2012, Serge Haroche (France) was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics, together with David J. Wineland, for his innovative work in the field of quantum optics. Their discoveries make use of the properties of light particles to create new technologies, such as ultrafast quantum computers. With The Science of Light: From Galileo’s Telescope to Quantum Physics, this Nobel laureate offers a revealing narrative about what we now know about light, from relativity theory to quantum physics, about how we have learned it and how this knowledge has led to many inventions that have changed our lives. Coinciding with the celebration of a centenary of quantum physics, Haroche will talk to the BBC journalist Carlos Serrano about the history and current state of knowledge regarding one of physics’ most exciting and important phenomena: light.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

The playwrite and performer Alberto Cortés (Spain) invites us to a very special performance. Let’s imagine a night of camping. You can come with your sleeping bag, food and drinks. Get comfortable to see the stars. Imagine a show where we return to the original approach to storytelling. We come together to listen, not to see each other. Imagine a forest that is a room, a hall, a passageway, where there is no front because what is needed is a way in. Because the viewer is a danger at this performance. This event is like a reading, but what it really seeks is to bring an end to the idea of the dramatized reading, because here there is no reading nor is there dramatizing. Los montes son tuyos is a live performance for unconventional spaces, designed and performed by Alberto Cortés, based on the texts of the book Los montes son tuyos, which contains the texts of the works El Ardor and One night at the golden bar.

Duration: 90 minutes

Liliana Colanzi (Bolivia) has a doctorate in Comparative Literature from Cornell University, where she now lectures. In 2015 she won the Aura Estrada Prize and in 2017 she was selected for the Bogotá39 list of 39 of the best Latin American fiction writers aged under 40. She has a publishing project in Bolivia called Dum Dum, is the author of the books of short stories Vacaciones permanentes and Nuestro mundo muerto. Her last work is Ustedes brillan en lo oscuro, a collection of stories that explore narratives through time and space on the exuberant historical and geographical riches of Latin America, a book that won the Ribera del Duero Prize. In conversation with the fiction writer and essayist Dahlia de la Cerda.

Guillermo Arriaga (Mexico), a writer and screenwriter, has won prizes such as the Mazatlán and the Alfaguara as a novelist, as well as the Best Screenwriter award at the Cannes Festival and the Golden Lion at Venice; he has also received nominations for an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a Bafta. At this event, the multi-talented writer for print and screen presents his latest novel, Extrañas, a bildungsroman set in 18th-century England that tells of the fascinating rise of science during the Enlightenment period, and its opposition to religion, the irrational and the monstrous side to human nature. In conversation with David Marcial Pérez.

Maruan Soto Antaki is a writer, born to a Syrian mother and a Mexican father, who is one of the major Mexican analysts of the political and religious situation in the Arab world. He is the author of five novels and several books of non-fiction, including Pensar Medio Oriente, Pensar México and Pensar Occidente. He presents his first work of non-fiction for young people, Lo que hicimos mal los adultos, illustrated by Bernardo Fernández, Bef, with the intention of explaining some of the main conflicts in the world to today’s teenagers, so they have more tools available to them in order to understand the crises that will still be with them in the future. Based on his great understanding of the issues, he will talk about the way he sees the Middle East, the West and Mexico.

In recent years, we have seen how profound technological changes have had important political consequences, not always aligned with the values of democratic societies, something that might lead to the question of whether technology represents a threat rather than a force for good. Three experts will talk about matters linked to democratic security in the context of dizzying technological change: Ha-Joon Chang (South Korea), who lectures in Economics at Cambridge and writer of several books including the recent Economics: The User’s Guide; Thomas Porcher (France), economist and author of Traité d’économie hérétique; and Carissa Véliz (United Kingdom), lecturer in Philosophy at the Institute for Ethics in AI and author of the book Privacy is Power. In conversation with Eduardo Rabasa.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

Gaëlle Obiégly is an art historian and the author of ten novels. In Une chose sérieuse, Daniel, the protagonist, writes in secret about his life in a survivalist community, funded by Madame Chambray, a wealthy and manipulative patron. Daniel, the woman’s guinea pig and scribe, must write the memoires of Chambray, and he accepts the implantation of a microchip in his brain, one that increases his abilities but decreases his free will. Daniel uses the little time that remains to him, free of vigilance, to write the raw material for this novel. In conversation with Paula Canal.

Simultaneous interpretation from French to Spanish available

Two of the most outstanding of the republic’s academics present the Diccionario de mexicanismos. Propios y compartidos, the result of the most complete investigation ever carried out into the Spanish spoken in Mexico, an initiative organised by the Mexican Academy of the Language. The text reveals the richness of the language used up and down the country, and it covers popular genres, clothing, culture and other matters. It includes terms from native languages such as Maya and Nahuatl as well as foreign languages such as English or French. In total, the dictionary contains: 10,587 lemmas; 431 sublemmas, which are forms of the lemma which create new meanings; 22,333 headwords and, at the end, a list of voices exclusive to Mexico. With Concepción Company, Assistant Director of the Academy. In conversation with Juan Villoro.

Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos is an initiative for the promotion of knowledge and exchange between writers of different generations and nationalities, united by the same language and a literary tradition enriched by authors of different origins. The project consists of an established author selecting a young writer from the other side of the Atlantic for conversation. On this occasion we present a conversation between Brenda Navarro (Mexico) and Greta García (Spain).

The author of the essay Feminismo sin cuarto propio, included in the anthology of feminist texts Tsunami 2, and of the outstanding short story collection Perras de reserva (2022), Dahlia de la Cerda (Mexico) returns with Desde los zulos (2023), a book that combines autofiction, journalism and essay to reflect on marginal feminisms, the danger of excluding practices within the social movements and proposes a more plural and diverse view of feminism. Dahlia de la Cerda has a degree in Philosophy, was a fellow of the 2015 Aguascalientes Programme for the Stimulation of Artistic Creation and Development and was also a beneficiary of the FONCA Young Artists’ Programme in 2016 and 2018. She is a co-founder and co-director of the Morras Help Morras feminist collective. She talks to Jumko Ogata Aguilar.

Elisa Guerra (Mexico) lectures in Education at the University of Harvard. In 2015 she was named Best Educator in Latin America and the Caribbean by the Inter-American Development Bank, and she was a member of the International Commission of UNESCO’s Futures of Education. At this event she will talk about her latest book, Las voces de los árboles, a work that takes readers into a parallel world in which trees of different species and places around the world tell their stories and allow us to reflect on the harm we are doing to the planet.

The Spaniard Leontxo García works in educational chess and has experience in over 30 countries. He gives lectures on the educational, social and therapeutic applications of chess (particularly its power to combat aging of the brain and Alzheimer’s), as well as its history and famous champions (having met all of them since Botvínik). Principal Councillor for Educational Chess of the World Chess Federation (FIDE, 199 countries), he has also been a journalist since 1983. He offers us a fascinating lecture on the educational power of chess, especially for young children, establishing links with the most common school subjects.

Artist, musician and fashion icon, Paul Simonon (United Kingdom) was the bass player and founder of the legendary band The Clash and the supergroup The Good, The Bad & The Queen, as well as a collaborator of Gorillaz. With his new musical project, Galen&Paul, alongside Galen Ayers (United Kingdom), Simonon returns to the musical scene with Can we do tomorrow another day? an evocative record with very European references and songs in Spanish and English. He will talk with Chris Salewicz, biographer of fellow The Clash member Joe Strummer, about a fascinating life devoted to art.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available