Online Events

Among the many things wrong with our current socioeconomic system is not just the fact that healthcare is a privilege for the few, but that a whole illness industry exists that is structured around making a profit from those who are unwell, often with serious illnesses. The poet, essayist and lecturer Anne Boyer (United States) won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction for The Undying. A Meditation on Modern Illness, an acute and lucid work that tells of her own experience as a survivor of an aggressive breast cancer, which led her to live through and understand some chilling realities. Boyer is also the author of books such as The Romance of Happy Workers (2008), The 2000s (2009), Garments Against Women (2015) and A Handbook of Disappointed Fate (2018). In conversation with Eduardo Rabasa.

When the first Russian rockets fell on Kyiv on February 24 2022, novelist, essayist and writer Andrey Kurkov started keeping a diary. His entries – providing a first-hand account of what it’s like to live through an active conflict – were published in the book Diary of an Invasion. Kurkov’s writing chronicles the terrible impact of the conflict through his personal experiences, giving an intimate look at Ukrainian identity and the day-to-day lives of his fellow citizens. He and Jonathan Franzen – author of six novels including The Corrections, and five works of nonfiction – discuss their work, the role of literature during war, and the responsibility of the artist in times of conflict. Chaired by the Guardian’s chief culture writer Charlotte Higgins.

Based on an academic musical education and well as a profound interest in different kinds of music, such as Mexican popular music and jazz, Saxodia has created a unique style for saxophone quartets. The group was founded in Queretaro city in 2006 with the goal of creating a space for young people to learn the instrument and experiment with its possibilities. To end the day, the ensemble will offer a concert that fuses the best of jazz with some Mexican touches.

One in four plant species is threatened with extinction, mostly due to the destruction of ecosystems and climate change. In situ conservation of genetic plant resources, then, is crucial if we are to safeguard the planet's currently high levels of biodiversity, and to retain the species or genes needed by scientists and conservationists for crop improvement and ecological restoration.

Vicente Todolí and Lorenzo de' Medici, both saviours of species that might have become extinct, talk about their shared passion.

Vicente Todolí is one of the world’s foremost contemporary art curators, as attested by his career as director of museums such as IVAM in Valencia, the Tate Modern in London, and currently the Pirelli Hangarbiccoca in Milan, counted among the most prestigious art centres in Europe. His Todolí Citrus Foundation, a pivotal project for citrus fruit conservation, cultivates and protects 400 species that are in danger of extinction in an orchard that takes up the image of Palmera, Valencia and projects it to the world.

Prince Lorenzo de' Medici is a direct descendant of the Medici family, one of the most prominent historical families, under whose patronage the greatest works of Renaissance art were created, and whose art and conservationism turned the city of Florence into a cradle of world culture. Lorenzo de' Medici was born in Milan, Italy, and spent his childhood in Switzerland. Having lived in the United States as well as several European countries, he currently resides in Portugal. He is heir to Lorenzo the Magnificent, the great Medici who, among other notable achievements, has gone down in history for owning a world-famous collection of citrus fruits in Florence.

Sofía Barroso holds a degree in Art History and has organised cultural travel and art events since 1984. She has run the ARCO collectors' programme since its inception, was a member of the board of directors of the Friends of ARCO (2000-2006) and is currently on the board of trustees of the Jakober Foundation and the Zuloaga Foundation.

Can books about past wars prepare for future wars? Conversation about the similarities and differences between the war in the Balkans and Russia's war against Ukraine. About this in a conversation between Bosnian writer Ozren Kebo and Ukrainian writer and translator from Bosnian Kateryna Kalytko.

The writer Muriel Barbery (France) has brought joy to millions of readers with the novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog, winner of the French Booksellers’ Prize, a The New York Times bestseller, and made into a film in 2008. Her most recent book is A Single Rose (2021), the story of Rose, a 40-year-old woman who travels for the first time in her life to Japan in order to read the will of her father, whom she never met. On the trip, she unearths the secrets of her family’s past and discovers the fascinations of Japanese culture. She will talk to the writer and journalist Felipe Restrepo Pombo.

The Argentinean cartoonist Liniers has become one of the best-known practitioners of the genre on the international scene, attracting comparisons with the impact made in their day by figures such as Quino and Fontanarrosa. His famous comic strip Macanudo, with its unique and dreamlike fantasy elements, is read around the world. He also specializes in giving curious portraits of everyday reality, through characters such as Enriqueta, the girl who loves to read; the adorable monster Olga; and the Mysterious Man in Black. Liniers has also done front covers for magazines including The New Yorker, and album covers for musicians such as Kevin Johansen and Andrés Calamaro. Furthermore, he has founded the publishing company Común. His most recent book, for children, is called Flores salvajes. Liniers will share the secrets of his own particular universe with a Hay Festival audience. He will talk to Mariana H.

For children aged 4 to 12

“It's been written that the past is a foreign country. Nonsense. The past is my home country. The future is a foreign country, full of strange faces, I won't set foot there,” says the narrator of Time Shelter, the 2023 International Booker Prize winning novel by Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov (he will join remotely). Hopelessness about the future feeds the beasts of the past. The violent consequences of this turn are all too obvious: Russia is waging “a war not only for territory, but also for time,” as Gospodinov has put it, seeking to drag Ukraine and Ukrainians into a warped vision of the past.

But it is precisely Ukrainians’ commitment to and hope in the future that sustains them in their fight, bolstered by the memory of generations past. Can memory serve as an antidote to invented histories, thereby “holding the past at bay”? How can the stories we tell and read shape our understanding? Georgi Gospodinov, writer and translator Ostap Slyvynsky, and literary scholar and translator Uilleam Blacker speak with historian Katherine Younger about our stories and dreams of the past and memory's role in shaping the future.

How do we define when a war is won? Is it simply victory on the battlefield? A return of territory and lives saved? Or does victory also include the more intangible, such as the protection of our humanity and trust in the world, and the ability to still feel happiness and love in the aftermath of tragedy and trauma?

Philosopher, writer and translator Vakhtang Kebuladze, journalists Slavenka Drakulich (she will join remotely) and Anne Applebaum (she will join remotely), and Maksym Yakovliev look at what happens after war is over. They talk to the journalist and essayist Tetiana Oharkova about how we should communicate with people who have survived war, whether it’s possible to feel happiness after trauma, and whether wars represent new beginnings.

The writer Muriel Barbery (France) has brought joy to millions of readers with the novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog, winner of the French Booksellers’ Prize, a The New York Times bestseller, and made into a film in 2008. Her most recent book is A Single Rose (2021), the story of Rose, a 40-year-old woman who travels for the first time in her life to Japan in order to read the will of her father, whom she never met. On the trip, she unearths the secrets of her family’s past and discovers the fascinations of Japanese culture. She will talk to the writer and journalist Felipe Restrepo Pombo.

The Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos project aims to boost knowledge and exchange between writers of different generations and nationalities, united by a single language and a literary tradition enriched by authors of diverse origins. The initiative consists of having an established author select a young writer from the other side of the Atlantic. For the 2021 Hay Festival Queretaro, the Spanish writer and filmmaker, David Trueba, will talk to the award-winning writer Fernanda Melchor (Mexico), author of novels such as Temporada de huracanes and Páradais, her most recent work. This is a meeting to build bridges between different continents and perceptions.

In 1948, the United States of America enacted the Marshall Plan, an initiative to provide foreign aid to Western Europe to help it recover after the Second World War, and to boost the world economy. A panel of experts discuss how a modern version of the Marshall Plan from countries across the world is needed in the wake of the war in Ukraine.

The war has, and will continue to have, long-reaching and long-lasting effects outside the borders of the country economically. Historian Timothy Garton Ash, journalists Emma Graham-Harrison and Sevgil Musaeva, human rights lawyer Oleksandra Matviichuk and Oleksandr Sushko, Research Director at the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation in Kyiv and member of the Maidan People's Union council examine how the war is affecting money, investment and more. From looking at the long-term dangers of a peace on Russian terms to what Ukraine has to offer to the world and what can be done to communicate Ukraine's economic potential, the group will argue that supporting Ukraine's reconstruction and the full restoration of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity can stabilise global food and energy markets. Journalist Kristina Berdinskikh chairs.

Probably many curious children have asked some of the following questions: what is the radio? What makes it create sound? What are the basic elements inside a radio set? What is a presenter? What are advertisements for? At this interesting, fun event, Tere Alcántara will explain all this and answer other questions, as well as teaching us how to make a homemade microphone with an empty milk carton, a piece of cloth, a hands-free set with a wire, glue and scissors.

Ages 6 and over

Through time immemorial, architecture has been a means of cultural and temporal expression. Humans have used materials and techniques to generate a large variety of architectural modes adopted by nations and societies as a representative manifestation of themselves, contributing to the construction of the image of the city in which they are placed.

Part 1: Dialogue between Antonio Ortiz and Martha Thorne

Martha Thorne and Antonio Ortiz will talk about the architecture of cities and their transformation to more sustainable models.

Antonio Ortiz is the director of Cruz & Ortiz in Seville. One of the most international architecture firms in the country, they have delivered projects such as the Santa Justa train station, the headquarters of the Seville Provincial Council, the Olympic Stadium and the State Public Library. Over the course of their careers, Antonio Cruz and Antonio Ortiz have received various awards such as the Gold Medal of Andalusia awarded by the Andalusian Regional Government, the National Spanish Architecture Prize, and the City of Seville Prize.

Martha Thorne is a renowned American urban planner. She is currently a senior advisor to the Henrik F. Obel Foundation, where she runs a programme that brings together professors to discuss climate change and how architecture can improve the lives of people and the planet. A distinguished professor at IE University, she was dean of the IE School of Architecture and Design from 2015 to 2022. From 2005 to 2021, she was Executive Director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, popularly known as the "Nobel Prize for Architecture".

Part 2: Round-table debate moderated by Martha Thorne, with Antonio Ortiz, Sonia Mulero and Jaime de los Santos: The agents that transform cities.

The conversation between Martha Thorne, Antonio Ortiz, Sonia Mulero and Jaime de los Santos will address the transformation of cities and the agents that cause these changes.

Sonia Mulero is the director of the Banco Sabadell Foundation. Mulero was named in the 2019 Top100 Women Leaders of Spain, in the tertiary sector category. She serves on the all-women board of trustees at Concomitentes, the board of Foundations for Science (FECYT) and the board of #FundacionesPorElClima of the AEF. With qualifications in Strategic Management and Social Leadership Programme at IESE, a Postgraduate in Finance and Tax at EADA, and Psychology at UOC, she has extensive experience in the management of non-profit organisations in projects linked to talent development to promote creativity and innovation. She was formerly General Manager of Fundación Inlea (CSR of Inlea Corporation, linked to Cisco Systems) and Deputy Manager at CIDOB.

Jaime de los Santos is a politician, historian and writer. He served as the Community of Madrid’s Minister of Culture, and currently holds the role of executive secretariat of Culture, Equality and Social Policies of the Partido Popular (PP political party). He is a regular columnist for El Confidencial and he published his first novel: Si te digo que lo hice (published by Espasa) in 2022.

The Argentinean writer Pola Oloixarac, selected by Granta magazine as one of the best Spanish-language fiction writers in 2010, was awarded the 2020 Eccles Centre & Hay Festival Prize, being awarded a research period at the British Library to carry out investigation for her project about the Amazonian literary world, Atlas de la Amazonía (2021). The French writer Patrick Deville has published Amazonia (soon to be published in Spanish), which tells the story of the journey he undertook with his son along the river; the book explores the legend of the river of a thousand secrets, covers the first European intrusions, and invites the reader on a beautiful geographical, historical and literary journey. They will talk to the Colombian writer Santiago Gamboa about the challenge of writing about this region through experience and research.

Event in Spanish and French with Spanish subtitles

Encounter: The Ukrainian-Jewish Literary Prize ™ is designed to be based on the common centuries-old experience of Ukrainians and Jews, which has found expression in fiction and non-fiction literature. The prize is awarded annually for the most influential work of fiction and non-fiction (in 2023 - fiction) that promotes Ukrainian-Jewish understanding, helping to strengthen the position of Ukraine as a multi-ethnic society and embodying the motto "Our stories are incomplete without each other". The award ceremony will be held with the participation of Ukrainian writer Sofia Andrukhovych, whose novel Amadoka won the 2023 prize; Marjana Savka, editor-in-chief of The Old Lion Publishing House; Olha Mukha, curator of congresses, committees and new centers of PEN International; Oksana Forostyna, Co-founder at Yakaboo Publishing, editor, translator and writer; Natalia Feduschak, communication director of the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter.

This year it turns 10 years since Lockwood & Co was published. Meet Jonathan Stroud (he will join remotely), the author of the cult text. The moderator of the conversation is Volodymyr Arenev, a Ukrainian fiction writer.

Daniel Krauze (Mexico) is a fiction and screenwriter, author of two books of short stories and two novels, including Fallas de origen, winner of the 2012 Letras Nuevas Prize. His most recent book, Tenebra (2021), tells the story of a Mexican politician told through the book’s two main characters, Julio Rangel, who works with senator Óscar Luna, and Martín Ferrer, a man obsessed with this politician. The award-winning writer and journalist, Santiago Roncagliolo, (Peru) was selected in 2007 as one of the 39 best Latin American fiction writers aged under 40. His novel Abril rojo won the 2006 Alfaguara Novel Prize. His most recent novel, Y líbranos del mal (2021), is about the terrible family secrets uncovered by the protagonist, Jimmy, when he travels from Lima to Miami to care for his ill grandmother. In conversation with the writer Liliana Blum.

The Maidan Revolution - or Revolution of Dignity - took place in Ukraine in February 2014 at the end of the Euromaidan protests. Deadly clashes between protesters and state forces in the capital Kyiv culminated in the ousting of elected President Viktor Yanukovych and a return to the 2004 Constitution. An expert panel of contributors explores its significance as a turning point in Ukrainian history. With Kateryna Kalytko, Vitalii Portnykov and Antin Borkovski.

Speakers to be announced.

The writer and journalist Laura Castellanos and the illustrator Brenda Castro present La marcha del #TerremotoFeminista, an illustrated work of non-fiction that contextualizes feminism, from the origins of the patriarchy to the feminist movements of the 21st century. Readers follow Sofi, a teenager who joins the demonstrations that are protesting the oppression of the patriarchal system, and with whom we learn about all the victories won, and about all that still remains to be done.


From 12 years on