Hay Festival Ciudad de México 2015

Jorge Viladoms (Mexico) is an acclaimed pianist who has toured the world playing as a soloist as well as together with orchestras and chamber ensembles, working with classical musicians such as Gautier Capuçon, Philippe Cassard, Lionel Cottet, Fumiaki Miura, Camille Thomas and Charlie Siem. He presents here Luz de Luna, an exciting project for which he will share a stage with the dancers from the Ballet de Monterrey. At this concert the piano will be accompanied by cello and classical dance, creating a powerful and introspective performance that invites reflection. In a piece that has elements of both the classical repertoire and contemporary approaches, music and dance come together to make a unique experience that will leave nobody untouched.

Natalia Toledo is the author of the book Guendaguti Ñee Sisi: La Muerte pies ligeros, which tells the story of how death came to Earth, inspired by the images of the great Oaxaca artist Francisco Toledo, the author’s father, and presentes in a Zapoteco/Spanish bilingual edition. Toledo will share a reading of this tale with the public and talk about it with Imanol Martínez.

A visual artist and a journalist who, within their respective spheres, have studied and reflected on the experiences of people during the pandemic, will talk to Amanda de la Garza. Lorena Wolffer is a Mexico City-based artist and cultural activist who, in 2020, launched the Diarias Global platform; this initiative, in collaboration with the MUAC, involves the compilation of photos of adults, children and young people in order to portray the way the global Covid-19 pandemic has been lived. The journalist Joseph Zárate (Peru) has been awarded multiple prizes, including the 2018 Gabriel García Márquez Journalism Prize and the 2016 Ortega y Gasset Prize, and is the author of the works of non-fiction Guerras del interior (2018) and Algo nuestro sobre la tierra (2021), which are collections of his reports on funerary work during the pandemic, the outcome of his visits to hospitals, homes, streets, funerary companies, cemeteries and crematoria in Lima during the pandemic.

Juan Miguel Álvarez (Colombia) recently won the 3rd Sergio González Rodríguez Anagrama Non-fiction Prize, organized by the Anagrama Chair at the Autonomous University of Nuevo León. He will talk to the publisher Felipe Restrepo Pombo (Colombia) about La guerra que perdimos, the winning book. Event presented by the Anagrama editor Silvia Sesé (Spain).

There are questions that have been in the minds of humans since we emerged as enquiring beings: are the stars inhabited? Or are we alone in the universe? The guest who will discuss this matter with us is Carlos Briones (Spain), a doctor of science, a specialist in biochemistry and molecular biology and a researcher at the Council of Scientific Research’s Astrobiology Centre in Spain, an organization affiliated with NASA. Briones is the author of the book ¿Estamos solos? En busca de otras vidas en el cosmos, in which he takes up this question from an interdisciplinary viewpoint, looking at the history of how humans have reflected on extraterrestrial life not only from a scientific perspective, but also through art, literature, philosophy, music and science fiction. Briones is a dedicated Third Culture advocate, supporting the integration of the sciences, humanities and the arts. He will talk to Criseida Ruiz Aguilar.

In 2018 the whole world was scandalized to find out that a political data analysis agency, working together with Facebook, had played a decisive role in a disinformation campaign that contributed to Brexit and to Donald Trump’s election as US president. Carole Cadwalladr (United Kingdom) is an award-winning journalist who works for The Guardian and The Observer; this Pulitzer Prize finalist played an important role in bringing the story to light. Cadwalladr carried out a brilliant investigation that revealed some alarming facts: that Cambridge Analytica had used the data of at least 87 million Facebook users without their consent. The result? Cambridge Analytica filed for bankruptcy and Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of Facebook, had to testify before the US Congress. The work of Carole Cadwalladr is proof that journalism can have great social and political impacts, but it also clarifies how much needs to be done: our democracies are under constant threat. What can we do about it? Cadwalladr will talk about this matter with Emma Graham-Harrison.

Simultaneous translation from English to Spanish available

A trend in recent times that perhaps might be unexpected is the opening of bookshops, and talking or writing about them. A trade that seemed to be heading for extinction has shown that today it is more alive than ever, and it is proving its importance to the book ecosystem. Perhaps for this reason it is equally important to reflect on an appropriate model for the contemporary bookshop, and also to think about its future. With Rafael Arias (Letras Corsarias; Salamanca, Spain), Mara Rahab Bautista López (El Traspatio, Mexico) and Claudia Bautista (Hyperión; Xalapa, Mexico), in conversation with Paco Goyanes.

Tawakkol Karman (Yemen) is a human rights activist, journalist and politician. Known as “the mother of the revolution”, “the iron woman” and “the lady of the Arab spring”, Karman played a key role in the 2011 pro-democracy youth uprising in Yemen. She was awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, together with Ellen John Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee, in recognition of her leadership in the non-violent struggle and her work against authoritarianism, corruption and oppression. Karman is the first Arab woman and the second Muslim woman to win the Peace Prize and when she received it she was the youngest ever winner, aged just 32. She will talk to Alexandra Haas (Mexico).

Simultaneous translation from English to Spanish available

Are we bewildered in the face of an almost permanent feeling of crisis? The eminent French writer and historian François Hartog offers this talk on history and time, as presented in his new book, Chronos (2022). What he calls regimes of historicity are ways in which societies order time, articulating the present, past and future. Hartog has explored this concept in a number of his books, analysing how the modern idea of “history”, imposed by 19th-century European thought, proposes the notion of an open future and constant progress; meanwhile, since the 1980s, a new paradigm has arisen of “future crisis”. In Chronos, Hartog looks at what he considers to be the regime introduced by Christianity, an “apocalyptic presentism”. In conversation with Guillaume Boccara.

Simultaneous translation from French to Spanish available

For many years now, women have been playing an important role in the international publishing industry as editors, translators, literary agents, proofreaders, festival directors… and, of course, as readers. Paradoxically, they have not held their due space in the catalogues of publishers, or on the boards of directors of the major publishing companies. So is this changing? With Jazmina Barrera (Antílope; Mexico City, Mexico), Silvia Sesé (Anagrama; Barcelona, Spain) and Martha Julieta Hernández Aguilar (U-Tópica Bookshop; Mexico City, Mexico), in conversation with Claudia Ivonne Hernández.

The writer Mónica Lavín is considered to be one of the most interesting voices on the contemporary Mexican cultural scene. A prolific author of over 20 books, including novels, short story collections and four books of non-fiction. She has won a number of awards, including a Canadian Governor General’s Award and the Elena Poniatowska Ibero-American Novel Prize for her powerful and iconic novel Yo, la peor, about Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. She is a columnist for El Universal newspaper and presents programmes for channels Once and 22 that feature interviews with writers. In her most recent book, Últimos días de mis padres, the author deals with the death of her father, followed by the death of her mother. At this event, Lavín will offer a literary workshop at which the participants will create an exquisite corpse in order to cover the issue of narrative elements, and then do a short story writing challenge.

The zoologist, educator and communicator Andrés Cota Hiriart (Mexico) presents his very special Fieras familiares, inviting us to think about and celebrate biodiversity with a collection of personal essays in which he talks about his interactions and experiences with very different animals in different parts of the world. A collaborator with media outlets such as Vice, Letras Libres and Gatopardo, coordinator of the Sociedad de Científicos Anónimos, lecturer in Literature at the Escuela Superior de Cine film school and creator of the podcast Masaje Cerebral, he studied Biology at UNAM and did a Master’s in Communications at Imperial College, London. He is also the author of the novel Cabeza ajena (2017) and of the non-fiction publications Faunologías (2015) and El ajolote: Biología del anfibio más sobresaliente del mundo (2016). He will talk to Julieta Díaz Barrón.