Colombia Digital 2021

The Cuadernos hispanoamericanos initiative aims to promote knowledge and exchange between writers of different generations and nationalities, united by a single language and a literary tradition enriched by writers of very varied origins. Irene Solà (Spain) is the author of the publishing phenomenon When I Sing, Mountains Dance (2019), written in Catalan and translated into over 20 languages, with 15 editions in circulation and winner of the 2019 Cálamo Prize and the 2020 European Prize for Fiction. Et vaig donar ulls i vas mirar les tenebres is her new novel, a story of rural women, both living and dead. The author will talk to Felipe Restrepo Pombo (Colombia).

All Sunday events will be free for people who has an ID expeded in the Bolívar Department. You must request their courtesy tickets at the box office of the Hay Festival (CCCI) showing your ID, between 22 and 28 of January.

The radio, press and television journalist, writer of children’s literature and reading promotor, Pilar Lozano, is the author of almost 20 books exploring the country’s richness and diversity. Her stories also deal with the most painful sides of our recent history. Some of her books are La historia, los viajes y la abuela; Colombia, mi abuelo y yo; La estrella que le perdió el miedo a la noche and Historias de un país invisible.

Our book clubs are intimate events with guests selected from the Hay Festival programme. These small-scale events will be a chance to talk in depth about the most recent work published by those invited. At this event, William Ospina will talk to David Lara Ramos about his book Pondré mi oído en la piedra hasta que hable, which is about the German 18th-century explorer Alexander von Humboldt and the time he spent in Colombia (from Cauca to Quindío, and from Magdalena to Barú).

The book should be read before attending.

One of the most acclaimed authors of the moment, André Aciman (Egypt/United States) is the author of five novels and a range of books of non-fiction. He was educated at Harvard University and currently lectures at Bard College and at the universities of Princeton and New York. He came to prominence with his first novel, Call Me By Your Name (2008), made into a film by Luca Guadagnino in 2017. Aciman presents his most recent book, essays with much of memoir in them, Homo irrealis (2023), in which he looks back on his life and talks about some of the great authors of global literature: Proust, Freud, Cavafis, Pessoa, Rohmer and Sebald. The book explores nostalgia for a past that no longer exists and imagines all the possibilities for that past life, and a future one, but walking the fine limit between fantasy and reality. In conversation with Kirsty Lang.

Simultaneous translation from English to Spanish available

All Sunday events will be free for people who has an ID expeded in the Bolívar Department. You must request their courtesy tickets at the box office of the Hay Festival (CCCI) showing your ID, between 22 and 28 of January.

The lawyer Humberto de la Calle (Colombia) was a government minister during the César Gaviria presidency, Vice-president of the Republic, and Ambassador to Spain and then the United Kingdom in the late 1990s; in 2012 he was designated Head Negotiator of the government delegation during the peace process with the FARC. After the signing of the Final Agreement at the Colón Theatre, he was presidential candidate in 2018. Today he is a Senator in the Congress of Colombia. He has recently published a novel based on real events: La inverosímil muerte de Hércules Pretorius, about a young lawyer who has always been interested in the idea of a peaceful social revolution. De la Calle will talk to Ricardo Silva.

All Sunday events will be free for people who has an ID expeded in the Bolívar Department. You must request their courtesy tickets at the box office of the Hay Festival (CCCI) showing your ID, between 22 and 28 of January.

Different crimes are attacking one of the planet’s most important lungs. Mercury poisoning, heath crises, the degradation of ecosystems, illegal commerce, human rights violations, aggressions against indigenous communities… Cristina Vollmer de Burelli, the Venezuelan activist, Director of SOS Orinoco; Eliane Brum, Brazilian journalist and author of La Amazonía: viaje al centro del mundo (2024); and William Neuman, New York Times correspondent in Venezuela and author of Todo se puede poner peor (an investigation into the disastrous consequences of the government’s Arco Minero project in southern Venezuela), will together talk to Sergio Dahbar.

Simultaneous translation from Portuguese to Spanish available

All Sunday events will be free for people who has an ID expeded in the Bolívar Department. You must request their courtesy tickets at the box office of the Hay Festival (CCCI) showing your ID, between 22 and 28 of January.

What do Glinka and Humilda have in common, the respective protagonists of the latest books by this event’s guests, Arnoldo Kraus (Mexico) and Alonso Sánchez Baute (Colombia)? Both were much loved dogs, whose families had to say goodbye to them at the end of their lives. With their publications as a starting point, books in which they reflect on the sudden absence of a pet, Arnoldo Kraus, the author of Adiós, Glinka, and Alonso Sánchez Baute, the author of La mirada de Humilda, will talk about the experience of having a pet and learning to deal with its death, and with the responsibilities and emotional impact involved. In conversation with Guido Tamayo.

All Sunday events will be free for people who has an ID expeded in the Bolívar Department. You must request their courtesy tickets at the box office of the Hay Festival (CCCI) showing your ID, between 22 and 28 of January.

This award aims to be a stimulus for narrative journalism in Spanish, and to reward the work of the best literary journalists writing in the language. With this event, the 4th Anagrama / Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Foundation Prize for Non-fiction (which began in 2019 as the Sergio González Rodríguez Anagrama / UANL Prize) enters a new phase. The great Mexican journalist and writer Sergio González Rodríguez, in whose memory the prize was initiated, continues to be in our minds, and his extraordinary work will continue to encourage us to promote new voices in narrative journalism. The award will have the support of the Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Foundation and has an alliance with the Hay Festival. The jury of the Anagrama / Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Foundation Prize for Non-fiction is made up of Martín Caparrós, Carlo Feltrinelli, Leila Guerriero, Juan Villoro and Silvia Sesé. Coordination and preselection has been the responsibility of Felipe Restrepo Pombo.

All Sunday events will be free for people who has an ID expeded in the Bolívar Department. You must request their courtesy tickets at the box office of the Hay Festival (CCCI) showing your ID, between 22 and 28 of January.

The human, political, economic, environmental and social consequences of the war in the Ukraine are devastating. What solutions and what future await the European country? Catalina Gómez Ángel (Colombia), Juanita León (Colombia) and Volodymyr Yermolenko and Serhii Plokhy from Ukraine will be in conversation with Sergio Jaramillo.

Volodymyr Yermolenko will participate in this event digitally.

Simultaneous translation from English to Spanish available

All Sunday events will be free for people who has an ID expeded in the Bolívar Department. You must request their courtesy tickets at the box office of the Hay Festival (CCCI) showing your ID, between 22 and 28 of January.

Velia Vidal is a Colombian activist against inequality and racism, and an Afro-indigenous cultural manager; in 2022 the BBC named her on its list of the 100 most influential women in Latin America. In Aguas de estuario she tells of her experiences as a book and cultural promoter. In conversation with Ingrid Bejerman.

Simultaneous translation from English to Spanish available

All Sunday events will be free for people who has an ID expeded in the Bolívar Department. You must request their courtesy tickets at the box office of the Hay Festival (CCCI) showing your ID, between 22 and 28 of January.

Head of the Barcelona Agency for Urban Ecology since its creation in 2000, Salvador Rueda (Spain) promotes urban projects that take the environment into account. With studies in Biology, Psychology, Environmental Engineering and Energy Management, he was an EU urban environment expert between 1994 and 2000. In conversation with Juan Lozano, he will go into detail about strategic, habitable and sustainable urban models.

All Sunday events will be free for people who has an ID expeded in the Bolívar Department. You must request their courtesy tickets at the box office of the Hay Festival (CCCI) showing your ID, between 22 and 28 of January.

The anthropologist, archaeologist and historian, Carl Henrik Langebaek (Colombia), lectures at the University of the Andes and is the author of the books Antes de Colombia, which covers 14 thousand years of history before the arrival of Columbus, and Conquistadores e indios. La historia no contada, which examines the conquest and colonization of the Americas with a critical viewpoint, understanding it as a complex process that has little to do with the simplified version we usually learn. The author offers a broad, fresh view on how cultures and communities interacted, the role of women, and dismantles some myths about how this process, particularly in the tropics, occurred. In conversation with Juan Carlos Flórez.

All Sunday events will be free for people who has an ID expeded in the Bolívar Department. You must request their courtesy tickets at the box office of the Hay Festival (CCCI) showing your ID, between 22 and 28 of January.

This event explores the reasons why relating the lives of famous people has become a television genre in its own right, with specific narratives, staging conventions and language forms… especially with regard to the new series Rigo. César Augusto Betancur (screenwriter of this production) and Juan Pablo Urrego (lead actor) will talk to José Manuel Acevedo about the impact of this biographical series and why this kind of series connects so well with audiences.

All Sunday events will be free for people who has an ID expeded in the Bolívar Department. You must request their courtesy tickets at the box office of the Hay Festival (CCCI) showing your ID, between 22 and 28 of January.

We are interested in cultural management projects that manage to unite quality programming with inclusion and innovation. Book Bunk (in Nairobi, Kenya) is precisely that: a cultural project for the recovery of public libraries with profoundly positive impacts on the communities where it works. The Hay Festival International Director, Cristina Fuentes La Roche (Spain), Wanjiru Koinange (Kenya) and Angela Wachuka (Kenya) will talk to Margarita Valencia about the challenges of their projects and about international collaboration among countries of the South.

Simultaneous translation from English to Spanish available

All Sunday events will be free for people who has an ID expeded in the Bolívar Department. You must request their courtesy tickets at the box office of the Hay Festival (CCCI) showing your ID, between 22 and 28 of January.

The Creole Group band preserves the musical legacy of the islands of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina. Before he died, the founder, the artist Orston Christopher, recommended to the young people of the group that they maintain the archipelago’s musical heritage. Recognised by the islanders as a major part of this legacy, they have performed this music around the world for the past 36 years. Kent Francis James will talk to the writer and journalist Daniel Samper Pizano about the origin and legacy of the band, alongside Creole Group's live music.

All Sunday events will be free for people who has an ID expeded in the Bolívar Department. You must request their courtesy tickets at the box office of the Hay Festival (CCCI) showing your ID, between 22 and 28 of January.

The Peruvian writer and journalist Gabriela Wiener is the author of books such as Sexografías, Nueve lunas, Llamada perdida and Dicen de mí. She won the Peruvian National Journalism Prize for an investigation into gender violence in the literary world, and she is a regular columnist for a number of media outlets. Huaco retrato (2021) deals with her family past and, in parallel, with the history of Peru and Latin America; a huaco retrato is a piece of ceramic made by the native peoples of Peru. In 1878, the Austrian Jewish explorer Charles Wiener, the author’s great-great-grandfather, carried four thousand pre-Colombian pieces away from Peru, in the process gaining the recognition of the academic community based on their display at the Paris Universal Exhibition. The protagonist faces up to this instance of stolen memory and reflects on her own family past -which is the history of one continent or two-, and on the consequences of colonization and racism in our lives and in the here-and-now. In conversation with Vanessa Rosales.

All Sunday events will be free for people who has an ID expeded in the Bolívar Department. You must request their courtesy tickets at the box office of the Hay Festival (CCCI) showing your ID, between 22 and 28 of January.

Through his book Bailando con la muerte (Dancing with Death), doctor and politician Roy Barreras (Colombia) will share his experience on treating and curing his own cancer. Barreras has written this book with the aim of providing support to all those who have faced cancer, as well as to the families of patients who have suffered from this challenging disease. His work represents a clear invitation to face the most primordial ancestral fear of all human beings, which is the fear of dying, transforming it into the pleasure of living with a purpose. In conversation with Andrea Bernal.

All Sunday events will be free for people who has an ID expeded in the Bolívar Department. You must request their courtesy tickets at the box office of the Hay Festival (CCCI) showing your ID, between 22 and 28 of January.

In his work, Eduardo Romero García analyses and criticises matters of the foremost importance, such as colonialism, migratory policies and the leftovers of capitalism. In his most recent book, ¿Cómo va a ser la montaña un dios? (2023), he traces the route connecting the Colombian Caribbean coast with the Spanish region of Asturias, in a surprising way, one that is almost invisible to us under normal circumstances: coal mining. Romero García tells a powerful story that links the lives of an old man in Asturias, once a miner, with those of some Afro-Colombian women who reach Europe from the Cauca Valley, and a group of Colombian migrants who flee their country and when they reach their destination they find ships that have brought coal from El Cerrejón, in La Guajira, to a Spanish port. In conversation with Josef Amón Mitrani.