Hay Festival Colombia Digital

The entire body of Cristóbal Balenciaga’s work was an explosion of elegance, excellence, beauty and innovation, and a celebration of exclusive craftsmanship. He epitomises, like few others, modernity rooted in tradition, achieved through meticulous craftsmanship. The result can be none other than an artistic creation. This event will explore this form of craftsmanship capable of standing time still, as seen last year in the exhibition Cristóbal Balenciaga | Shoes from Spain Tribute; its curator, Javier Echeverría Sola, will speak with Nerea Pallares, whose novels and short stories are rooted in a poetic exploration of delicacy, manual dexterity and forms of creation linked to the intimate and the artisanal. Her latest book, Punto de araña, she brought the lace-makers of Camariñas to the centre of the story. las palilleiras de Camariñas.Her writing champions an idea of beauty tied to attention, slowness and the careful work of the hands. The event will be moderated by Enrique de Santiago, senior project manager at Loewe.

After the event, the author will be signing copies of her books

Event in Spanish

The trend in our society is increasingly towards a search for the human in everyday life: the beauty of imperfection, of sensitivity and of authentic feelings. Overwhelmed, on the one hand, by consumerism and industrial goods, and on the other, by virtual and dematerialised relationships, people are seeking to reclaim a natural and deeply human dimension in their daily lives. For many young people in the 21st century, a beautiful life also implies a different relationship with nature: a life in which the environment does not constantly suffer the consequences of mass production; where beauty is also synonymous with cleanliness and sustainability. Reusing, restoring, and breathing new life into places and objects. Three leading art experts are well versed in all this: Mercedes de Miguel, director of the prestigious Segre auction house; Corisande Albert, a ceramist; and Belén Llamas Ferrier, president of the Contemporary Arts and Crafts Association, who will engage in a dialogue on the need for tradition and classicism to provide steadfast values in turbulent times.

Event in English with simultaneous translation into Spanish

What happens when a society obsessed with progress loses touch with its roots? Carlos Franganillo, one of the most prestigious journalists on the Spanish television news scene, and Diego del Alcázar, President of IE, will discuss this topic in relation to his latest novel, La idea de volver. Set against the backdrop of the tranquil Cantabrian mountains and the hustle and bustle of life in New York, the novel follows the story of an academic returning to the place of his childhood and an elderly man trying to come to terms with the passage of time. The work reflects on roots, identity and the limits of knowledge in the age of artificial intelligence.

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

Event in Spanish with simultaneous interpretation into English

Lea Ypi (Albania) grew up during the final years of a communist regime and the transition that followed its collapse. In Free, winner of the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize and the Slightly Foxed First Biography Prize, she reconstructs that childhood as a lived experience of political change, where authority shifts form and freedom is learned through its absence. Indignity extends this inquiry into family history and state archives, tracing her grandfather’s life under secret police surveillance and showing how public systems of power shape private memory; together, both books form a reflection on how lives are narrated across rupture, and what remains of freedom and dignity once it becomes history. In conversation with Oksana Forostyna.

Beauty is often considered a universal value, an objective quality that transcends time and space. However, the criteria by which we judge whether something is beautiful are determined by cultural conventions, historical circumstances, and systems of power. What one culture reveres as beautiful, another may overlook. Adam Lowe—internationally recognized for his pioneering work in the field of heritage conservation and the development of rematerialization techniques—explores beauty as a cultural condition that determines how we see, value, preserve, and transmit material culture. He will talk about this theme to Alex Ellis, UK Ambassador in Spain, and to Sol Costales, Projects Director of Factum Arte.

Event in English with simultaneous interpretation into Spanish

What can poetry do for us? Can it change our relationship with words, with pain, with beauty, with nature, with love and with life? Thomas Schlesser, art historian and author of the publishing phenomenon Mona’s Eyes, and of the philosophical novel The Gardener’s Cat, discusses poetry as one of the oldest and most powerful ways of putting the world into words. Schlesser will discuss all of this with Elena Garrigues, a passionate expert in art and culture who works as a professor of Ethics at lE University. The event will be presented by Zélie Perpignaa, an expert in cultural mediation and attaché for Books, the Exchange of Ideas, and Media Libraries at the Institut Français in Spain.

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

Event in French with simultaneous interpretation into Spanish

Palestinian writer Adania Shibli speaks to us about fiction writing against the backdrop of disorienting experiences as an effect of decades-long Israeli colonial violence in Palestine. Shibli does so primarily through her literature, but also through events like this one. Following Minor Detail, the story of a young woman’s rape in the aftermath of the 1948 Palestinian Nakba and the creation of the Israeli state, which was nominated for the 2021 International Booker Prize and was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Translated Literature, comes Delusion, a novel in which two young characters try to move throughlife when hardly anything is possible for Palestinians as they are stripped not only of their lands but also dignity and dreams.

After the event, the author will be signing copies of her books

Event in English with simultaneous interpretation into Spanish

Two artists linked by a shared discipline: portraiture. Hernán Cortés, one of the leading figures in Spanish painting, and the photographer and multidisciplinary artist Hubertus von Hohenlohe will discuss their respective approaches to people and their identities. Through painting, Cortés creates a sober, restrained portrait with a strong psychological dimension, rooted in tradition and art history. In contrast, Von Hohenlohe, through photography, presents more vibrant images, constructed from multiple visual references that emerge spontaneously in today’s city. Two distinct languages, two ways of seeking others’ identities and beauty through unhurried contemplation, which, far from being opposed, reveal complementary approaches to contemporary representation.

Event in Spanish

In democratic societies, since ancient Greece, common sense has been based on verifiable knowledge, which gave rise to colloquia, universities, and academies, later followed by institutionalized expert committees and think tanks. Common sense was based on this recognition. And a stable democracy was based on the recognition of these entities. German producer Michael Trabitzsch will discuss with writer Lorenzo de’ Medici how this entire complex structure is being radically challenged by platforms like TikTok and social media. In short: anyone can claim whatever they want on these platforms and share it without first providing evidence, in a sort of idle chatter and denigration of other knowledge. Against the beauty of reflection stands the noise of the ephemeral.

After the event, the author will be signing copies of his books

Event in English with simultaneous interpretation into Spanish

As geopolitical tensions rise, global institutions weaken and the international order becomes increasingly fragmented, Europe faces a defining question: can it remain united, prosperous and influential in a rapidly changing world?

In this timely conversation, Frederick Studemann, Literary Editor of the Financial Times, brings together two leading European voices to reflect on the challenges and opportunities facing the continent today. Former Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs Arancha González Laya, author of Solos en el Mundo: Estados Unidos amenaza, Rusia hace la guerra, China reconstruye un imperio... ¿Y Europa? examines how growing geopolitical rivalry and the erosion of international cooperation are reshaping the global landscape. Catherine de Vries, Vice Dean of IE School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs and author of the forthcoming How Europe Survives, explores the remarkable adaptability and resilience that have enabled Europe to navigate successive crises.

A thought-provoking conversation about the future of Europe, the changing global order and the ideas that will shape the decades ahead.

Event in English with translation to Spanish

British national David Lindo (known as The Urban Birder) is one of the world’s leading experts in ornithology, as well as a writer, television host, guide, and nature educator followed by tens of thousands of people. His great passion is connecting city dwellers with the birds that inhabit the countryside—a fascinating journey characterized by the beauty of the surroundings and a reconnection with nature. This cathartic experience will be discussed in a conversation with the British Ambassador to Spain, Sir Alex Ellis, an avid music lover who is convinced that experiencing nature is essential to human development. The event will be moderated by journalist Irene Hernández Velasco.

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

Event in English with simultaneous interpretation into Spanish

Viet Thanh Nguyen’s work combines powerful storytelling with sharp reflections on war, exile, and cultural identity. A Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former child refugee, he has helped reshape the way we understand the Vietnam War and its aftermath, as well as the experiences of the Vietnamese diaspora. Across fiction and non-fiction alike, Nguyen explores questions of memory, belonging, and displacement in books such as The Sympathizer, The Refugees, The Committed, A Man of Two Faces, and his most recent work, To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other.

If human relationships are complex in themselves, those within the family can become labyrinths that are difficult to navigate due to the enormous weight of emotions, joys, pain, beauty and confusion they contain. Manuel Jabois, a leading voice in Spanish literature and opinion journalism, explores in La vìspera the first social institution: the family. And just as from the deepest love, red lines are sometimes crossed under a naive pretence: if things happened sometimes, they were sorted out, as in all families. Jabois is able to raise doubts through the harsh reality of things.

After the event, the author will sign copies of his books

Event in Spanish

The priest, philosopher and theologian Pablo d’Ors believes that spirituality and meditation are spaces that fulfil us, allowing us to grasp the meaning of things, so that our gaze can escape the pressures of daily life and everything takes on a new beauty. This process is not a matter of conscious reflection; one simply has to let oneself be drawn into one’s inner self. D’Ors, founder of the Friends of the Desert meditation network, combines his pastoral work as a priest with a prolific literary output of spiritual content, with titles such as Biografía del silencio, that have had a huge international impact. In conversation with Fernando Rodríguez Lafuente.

The event will be presented by Sonia Mulero Monroy, General director of Fundación Banco Sabadell.

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

Event in Spanish

Inma Ballesteros (Spain) and Sonia Faleiro (India) are two figures indispensable to promoting writers in today’s global literary ecosystem. They are the driving force behind bringing diverse literary voices to festivals and book fairs in every corner of the world. Ballesteros promotes Spanish culture in her role as director of programming at Acción Cultural Española (AC/E), whilst Faleiro is the founder of the South Asia Speaks mentoring programme, which aims to amplify emerging literature in that region. The two organisers will speak with the writer and deputy editor of La Vanguardia Miquel Molina about the importance of building networks to support literary communities of emerging talent and about their work at the helm of AC/E and South Asia Speaks.

At the end of the event, the authors will be signing copies of his books

Event in English with simultaneous interpretation into Spanish

An accident can split a life in two. It can also become a way of looking at the world. Marta Jiménez Serrano and Nerea Pérez de las Heras draw on extreme experiences that nearly cost them their lives to create two books that transcend autobiographical narrative and delve into universal themes. In Oxígeno, Jiménez Serrano recalls the carbon monoxide poisoning that nearly killed her while weaving in reflections on love, family, housing, and precariousness. In Fantasma, Pérez de las Heras transforms the loss of part of her leg following a boating accident into a luminous and incisive reflection on the body, identity, public healthcare, exposure, and friendship. With sensitivity, humor, and a remarkable ability to transform personal experience into literature, both authors confront death head-on to celebrate the daily wonder of still being here.

Following the event, the authors will sign copies of their books

Event in Spanish

Some lives are enough for many lives; and there are family stories whose recollection brings to light the history of their surroundings, sometimes dramatic. Margaryta Yakovenko emigrated to Spain at the age of 7 with her parents, leaving her loved ones behind in Ukraine. Today, everything has taken an unexpected turn, and that family now finds itself in an area invaded by Russia. Together with Jesús García Calero, a journalist and one of Spain’s leading experts in cultural outreach, she will explore the last century of a region that has been particularly turbulent. She will draw on her latest work, Ocupación, which serves as a reckoning with her past.

At the end of the event, the authors will sign copies of her book

Event in Spanish

Contemporary Spanish music cannot be discussed without mentioning Ramoncín. Since bursting onto the scene in the 1970s at just 22 years old and with a burning desire to take on the world, this Madrid-born artist is responsible for some of the most important anthems in the history of Spanish rock, such as Hormigón, Mujeres y Alcohol, Como un susurro, La chica de la puerta 16, Miedo a soñar, Marica de terciopelo, Estamos desesperados and Ángel de cuero. Armed with a wealth of experience in music, life, and culture, Ramoncín sits down to talk with Santiago Herrero, director of Cultural and Scientific Relations at AECID, to explain how one can continue to be a trailblazer at the age of 70.

Event in Spanish

Julian Barnes (United Kingdom) has suggested that Departure(s), published earlier this year, will be his final book. With this novel about love, happiness and farewells, he brings a long literary career into focus, one that established him as a central figure in contemporary English fiction with works such as Flaubert’s Parrot and The Sense of an Ending. Recently awarded the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature, he is a writer with a distinctly European outlook, whose work moves between fiction and reality, irony and melancholy, and a sustained attention to how stories are constructed, remembered, and revised. One of the most important writers of contemporary fiction will be in conversation with Oleksandr Mykhed.