Hay Festival Colombia Digital

The great French thinker Edgar Morin, celebrates 100 years of life in 2021. His ideas about the so-called Complex Thought are more relevant than ever before. The writer of Seven Complex Lessons in Education for the Future and his most contemporary vision in Cambiemos de vía, lecciones de la pandemia will be part of this conversation about complexity in even more complex times. Juan Villoro, Mexican fiction writer, essayist, dramatist and journalist, winner of the Herralde Prize for his novel El testigo, and one of the most interesting voices in the Spanish-language literary panorama. He will talk to the French-Colombian philosopher Nelson Vallejo-Gómez, author of an essay about the construction of knowledge and the metamorphosis of disciplines in the work of Morin, about the importance of those seven lessons, with particular emphasis on the transformations and changes of paradigm that the global pandemic is bringing.

In recent decades Roger Bartra has become an essential figure for understanding what it means to be Mexican today, based on key concepts such as melancholy and a national culture’s capacity for metamorphosis. Bartra has a doctorate in Sociology from the Sorbonne, is an Emeritus Professor at UNAM and has been a guest lecturer at different universities in Mexico, the United States and Spain. On this occasion, the event will focus on two books that are essential in order to understand his worldview, the essays Chamanes y robots: Reflexiones sobre el efecto placebo y la conciencia artificial, and Melancolía y cultura. In conversation with Jacobo García.

Innovation and progress in society cannot be understood without bringing in a profound knowledge of the humanities and of culture. Hay Festival Segovia has invited two innovators in their fields: Pablo Isla, the new Chair of the IE University Advisory Board, was considered as one of the world’s top CEOs by international management magazines during his time at the head of Inditex; and Rodrigo Cortés, a director, actor, producer, screenwriter, aphorist and novelist with an impressive international career. Nothing seems to be beyond this writer, closely linked to Salamanca. Aged just 25 he was already filming videos for Alejandro Amenábar and he has not hesitated to undertake projects with Hollywood stars such as Robert de Niro, Sigourney Weaver and Uma Thurman, or a cast of over ten young international actors for his latest film, Love Gets a Room.

Once the event has finished, the authors will sign books in the booth outside IE University.

Event in Spanish

A brilliant career as a philosopher, writer, academic and professor might be summed up in just one word: wisdom. Emilio Lledó is a wise man, a humanist, and increasingly essential in a world that tends to forget the humanities. He has written dozens of essays on thought, ethics, beauty and freedom, including Filosofía y lenguaje, El silencio de la escritura, Días y libros, Memoria de la ética. He has also received the highest national awards, such as the Princess of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities, and the Gold Medal for Fine Arts, and holds the “lowercase L” chair at the Spanish Academy. Identidad y amistad. Palabras para un mundo posible (Identity and Friendship. Words for a Possible World) is his latest book.

Lledó will be in conversation with Elena Martínez, editor at Taurus publishers.

Event in Spanish

Once the event has finished, the author will sign books in the booth outside IE University.

Spain is the Guest of Honour at this year's Frankfurt Book Fair, a unique opportunity to showcase Spanish culture and literature to the world. Under the hashtag Overflowing Creativity, Spain will take 450 books in Spanish translated into German to the event. The sector will be represented by 400 publishers and more than 200 authors, and the cultural programme will offer a wide variety of genres and art forms through exhibitions, dance performances, theatrical performances, musical events and publications especially designed for presentation in Germany. This international event will be presented and discussed by María José Gálvez, director general of Books and the Promotion of Reading at the Ministry of Culture and Sport; Isabel Izquierdo, director of programming at Acción Cultural Española, AC/E; the project curator Elvira Marco; and Marifé Boix, vice-president for Southern Europe and Latin America at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Event in Spanish

The pandemic was a time of fear and uncertainty, but also of silence and reading, of reflection on the past. Antonio Muñoz Molina, an RAE member and one of the most distinguished writers on the Spanish literary scene, puts his brilliant analytical prose to the service of memory. The memory of a recent time, one hidden from the history books, and another memory: the world of his childhood in the countryside, which will die when his last protagonists die. Volver a dónde talks about those days of contemplation, of confusing and alarming news, but also of hope for the future. It is a brilliant addition to an impressive oeuvre that includes novels, essays, diaries and stories; a career that has been worthy of major prizes including the Princess of Asturias Literature Award.

Muñoz Molina will talk to Ana Gavin, Publishing Relations Manager for the Planeta Group and a publisher with many years of experience, including working with outstanding figures in Spanish-language literature.

The writer will sign his works after the event at the stand on Calle Real.

Event in Spanish

Santiago Beruete, writer and philosopher, author of Verdolatria, Aprendivoros and Jardinosofia, and Alejandro Quecedo del Val, young eco-social activist and author of the essay Gritar lo que está callado, will explore ways out of the Ecosocial Crisis produced by the Anthropocene: ecological, social and cultural transitions necessary to put an end to this state of war with the planet.

Moderated by Beatriz González, director of De Conatus publishing house

Event in Spanish

Signing at the stand of Calle Real