Hay Festival Querétaro 2023 – Family

One of the most critical matters among those debated today is the issue of care, as well as new understandings of parenting. At this event, audiences will be able to hear the points of view of two writers who have experience in these matters, and have written and reflected on them. 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 Chilean writer Alejandro Zambra is the author of ten books that have been translated into at least 20 languages, has won awards such as the English PEN Award and the Prince Claus, and was selected in 2007 to feature on the Bogotá39 list as one of the 39 best Latin American fiction writers under 40; he has published the recent Literatura infantil, a series of stories, both fictional and non-fiction, about childhood and fathering. They will talk to the teacher Norma Ayala.

Three writers talk about their works which deal with a matter that is both everyday and essential in our lives: care. The journalist Daniela Rea (Mexico) is the author of Fruto, a book that is about the contradictions of care based on 14 voices from different generations. 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 Chilean writer Alejandro Zambra, author of ten books that have been translated into at least 20 languages, has received awards such as the English PEN Award and the Prince Claus. In his book, Literatura infantile (2023), he offers a series of stories, both fictional and non-fiction, about childhood and fathering. In conversation with Elvira Liceaga.

The Basque writer Eider Rodríguez will talk about her first novel, Material de construcción. With this book, the author uses the genre of autofiction to tell the story of a childhood and family life that bear the scars of the alcoholism of her father. The writer, publisher, broadcaster and literature teacher, Elvira Liceaga (Mexico), presents her novel Las vigilantes, which introduces Julia, a woman who returns to Mexico, to her maternal home, where she is awaited by Catalina. On this return trip she meets Silvia, a pregnant woman. The stories of these three women mingle in a story of care and watchfulness in which each one becomes a reflection of the others. In conversation with Diego Rabasa.

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.

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.