Hay Festival Querétaro 2021

The main character of Mi pelo chino says that she used to find her curly hair annoying because it was unlike the hair of other girls her age. However, one day her grandfather teaches her the special care that her Chinese hair needs, and all the hairstyle possibilities it offers, because this shows how she can be beautiful in different ways. This is a story about the construction of an identity in peoples who have traditionally been ignored in national cultural production. Jumko Ogata Aguilar (Xalapa, 1996) is a writer and an Afro-Mexican anti-racism activist. Originally from Veracruz, she studied Latin American Studies at the UNAM. She writes fiction, essays and film criticism. Her writings have been published in the Revista de la Universidad de México and by the British Council in Mexico, and she writes a column for Coolhuntermx. She contributed to the anthology of feminist texts Tsunami 2, published by Sexto Piso in 2020. In conversation with Elisa Guerra.

The award-winning writer Aroa Moreno Durán (Spain) is a journalist and specialist in International Information and the Countries of the South. She has written poetry books and biographies of Frida Kahlo and Federico García Lorca. She won the Ojo Crítico Fiction Prize in 2017 for her first novel, The Communist’s Daughter, and the 2022 Grand Continent Prize for the second, La bajamar, a story full of family secrets and confrontations between mothers and daughters of different generations. Adirane, the protagonist of this novel, goes in search of the memories of a remote family past, damaged by the Spanish Civil War. In the process, she leaves her young daughter and her husband, and confront her mother, with whom she has not spoken for years. A novel that reflects on growing up and care, motherhood and pain, and the permanent tension between the past and what is to come. In conversation with the doctor Eduardo Becerra.

The economist Thomas Porcher (France) presents his wildly successful book, now available in Spanish, Traité d’économie hérétique. In the book, the author questions the discourses of neoliberal economics, such as the myth of individual success, public expenditure and the rupture of the social model, and free exchange and the power of multinational companies. Well-known for his unorthodox positions on the economy, at this event, Porcher will also offer arguments and mechanisms in terms of practices that are alternatives to the dominant mindset. In conversation with Eduardo Rabasa.

Simultaneous interpretation from French to Spanish available

We talk about literature, literary production in non-traditional formats, and the intersections of art and writing, on how to narrate artistic experience through words, and also via cultural management projects. With Eva Piquer (Catalonia, Spain), the author of 13 books, former Literary Manager at the Thassalia publishing house and currently the Editor of the cultural magazine Catorze; and María Ptqk (Spain), cultural researcher and art curator with a doctorate in Artistic Research, who specialises in the ecological and the technoscientific, with a post-cultural perspective. In conversation with Cristina Fuentes La Roche, the festival director.

Bárbara Anderson (Mexico) became involved in the advocacy of disability rights after the birth of her son Lucca with cerebral palsy. Enrique Covarrubias is one of Mexico’s most important editorial photographers, and the quadriplegia that has resulted from an accident has not stopped him from carrying out major photographic projects. In his latest novel, Extrañas, the Mexican writer Guillermo Arriaga deals with certain pathologies considered to be curses in 18th century England. They will talk about the stigmas and many forms of not being defined by disabilities, with the cultural journalist Primitivo Olvera.

With his first novel, In the Distance, the Argentinean writer Hernán Díaz was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. His latest book, Trust, has put his name on the longlist for the Booker Prize and it has recently been awarded the Pulitzer Prize. It is now being made into a series by the actor and producer Kate Winslet. The plot is about trust, money and power, and the novel is peopled by Wall Street magnates and eccentric aristocrats. In conversation with Elvira Liceaga, the author will talk about his latest work and will reflect on the unexpected links between money and fiction.

The Leo con Once book club comes to Querétaro with the participation of a very special writer: Spanish author Manuel Vilas. He will talk to cultural journalist and Canal Once presenter Miguel de la Cruz, and will answer club readers' questions about his latest book, Nosotros.

Raja Kirik is an Indonesian duo, Yennu Ariendra and J. Mo'ong Santoso Pribadi, two artists who work with the rich cultural traditions of Java and its history of struggle against colonial oppression, to create a music that surprises, challenges and educates. Their music is inspired by the sounds of shamanic trance music for dancing to, specifically the Jaranan, or Jathilan, whose history goes back to the Hindu-Buddhist era of the 11^th century. They present Rampokan, their second album, originally released by the cult Indonesian label Yes No Wave in June 2020. The album has its roots in the interpretation of Jaranan, in which musicians undergo a kind of possession, connecting with their unconscious minds and the memories and traumas of the body.

Mi madre muerta is a ritual and a farewell. A dialogue between generations. A meditation on coming out of the womb, the link that comes from the umbilical cord and the connection that is lost when a life is lost. It is related to how the fine artists Anna Jonsson and her daughter Greta García Jonsson understand tragedy, often shot through with sarcasm and black humour. Greta García will dance with a large rag doll, a sculpture created by her mother, Anna Jonsson. A work about the inevitable end that awaits us and the great preparation for it, but also about the possibilities of transforming pain through art.

Duration: 1 hour

The Mexican writer Tania Tagle presents her first book of essays, Germinal, which contains ten years of reflections on pregnancy, birth and raising her first child. The author will talk about the ideas that have given form to the experience of being a mother since classical antiquity, revisiting concepts that range from the monstrous to the miraculous, in order to think about how these affect and determine the current experience of motherhood.

The main character of Mi pelo chino says that she used to find her curly hair annoying because it was unlike the hair of other girls her age. However, one day her grandfather teaches her the special care that her Chinese hair needs, and all the hairstyle possibilities it offers, because this shows how she can be beautiful in different ways. This is a story about the construction of an identity in peoples who have traditionally been ignored in national cultural production. Jumko Ogata Aguilar (Mexico) is a writer and an Afro-Mexican anti-racism activist. Originally from Veracruz, she studied Latin American Studies at the UNAM. She writes fiction, essays and film criticism. Her writings have been published in the Revista de la Universidad de México and by the British Council in Mexico, and she writes a column for Coolhuntermx. She contributed to the anthology of feminist texts Tsunami 2, published by Sexto Piso in 2020. She will talk to Tere Alcántara.

The notorious Spanish screenplay writer and director Fernando León de Aranoa will talk to Jan Martinez Ahrens about his carreer and his work Sintiéndolo mucho, a documentary on the last decade of singer Joarquin Sabina. Fernando wrote and directed the film Barrio, which tells the story of the life of a group of teenagers in a manginal neighbourhood. The movie won the Goya Awards for Best Original Screenplay and Best Director, and the Concha de Plata for Best Director at the San Sebastián Film Festival. Los lunes al sol, starring Javier Bardem, which he directed in 2002, won five Goya Awards and and the Concha de Oro for Best Film at the San Sebastián Film Festival. In 2021, El buen patrón was released, a movie directed by him featuring Javier Bardem, winner of the Goya Awards for Best Film and Best Director and selected by the Academy of Film Arts and Sciences of Spain to represent the country at the 94 Oscars, in the category of Best Foreign Language Film.

We are constantly handing over our data to companies, websites, via social media, thinking that this will help us in our everyday business… but will it really? Carissa Véliz, lecturer in Philosophy at the Institute for Ethics in AI, and a tutorial fellow at Hertford College, University of Oxford, is the author of the book Privacy is Power. Why and How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data. This is an essential text for understanding one of the most critical problems of the information age: the loss of privacy. In conversation with Eliezer Budasoff.

The British Council and Hay Festival present the series of events entitled Imagine Equity, the goal of which is to promote the contribution to cultural life of groups that are traditionally underrepresented. The intention is to create a conversation between writers of different continents so they can debate, through fiction and non-fiction, matters such as gender, sexual identity, race, ethnicity, neuronal and physical diversity, etc. With the participation of Aura García-Junco, named one of the best Spanish-language writers by Granta magazine in 2021; Sarah Ladipo Manyika (Nigeria/United Kingdom), Director of the Board of the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, California, and jury of a range of literary awards; and Maria Medem (Spain), cartoonist and illustrator, author of Por culpa de una flor (2023). They will talk to Gabriela Warkentin.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

Rosa Beltrán (Mexico), writer, publisher and translator, is a Cultural Dissemination coordinator for UNAM and the author of over a dozen books of short stories, essays and fiction, of which Radicales libres (2021) is her most recent work. The departure of her mother is the beginning of a story that the novel’s protagonist tells to her daughter, exploring a series of historical and personal events that marked the life of this character and the collective experience of at least three generations. The writer and winner of the Ojo Crítico Prize for Fiction, Aroa Moreno Durán (Spain), presents her latest novel, La bajamar. It is a story about maternities and the social and historical traumas that separate mothers and children of various generations. They will both talk to Sylvia Georgina Estrada.

Strongly against the idea that economics is only for experts, the Cambridge University professor, Ha-Joon Chang (South Korea), makes economic theory edible, and even delicious, by uniting it with his passion for cookery in his latest book, Edible Economics. The author takes the stories of ingredients from around the world to illustrate clearly and accessibly contemporary economic thinking, and challenges notions that are strongly rooted in today’s discourses, such as globalization, climate change, immigration, and austerity. In conversation with Eduardo Rabasa.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

How has the role of light in understanding the universe changed, and how is it still changing? In 2012, Serge Haroche (France) was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics, together with David J. Wineland, for his innovative work in the field of quantum optics. Their discoveries make use of the properties of light particles to create new technologies, such as ultrafast quantum computers. With The Science of Light: From Galileo’s Telescope to Quantum Physics, this Nobel laureate offers a revealing narrative about what we now know about light, from relativity theory to quantum physics, about how we have learned it and how this knowledge has led to many inventions that have changed our lives. Coinciding with the celebration of a centenary of quantum physics, Haroche will talk to the BBC journalist Carlos Serrano about the history and current state of knowledge regarding one of physics’ most exciting and important phenomena: light.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

The playwrite and performer Alberto Cortés (Spain) invites us to a very special performance. Let’s imagine a night of camping. You can come with your sleeping bag, food and drinks. Get comfortable to see the stars. Imagine a show where we return to the original approach to storytelling. We come together to listen, not to see each other. Imagine a forest that is a room, a hall, a passageway, where there is no front because what is needed is a way in. Because the viewer is a danger at this performance. This event is like a reading, but what it really seeks is to bring an end to the idea of the dramatized reading, because here there is no reading nor is there dramatizing. Los montes son tuyos is a live performance for unconventional spaces, designed and performed by Alberto Cortés, based on the texts of the book Los montes son tuyos, which contains the texts of the works El Ardor and One night at the golden bar.

Duration: 90 minutes

Liliana Colanzi (Bolivia) has a doctorate in Comparative Literature from Cornell University, where she now lectures. In 2015 she won the Aura Estrada Prize and in 2017 she was selected for the Bogotá39 list of 39 of the best Latin American fiction writers aged under 40. She has a publishing project in Bolivia called Dum Dum, is the author of the books of short stories Vacaciones permanentes and Nuestro mundo muerto. Her last work is Ustedes brillan en lo oscuro, a collection of stories that explore narratives through time and space on the exuberant historical and geographical riches of Latin America, a book that won the Ribera del Duero Prize. In conversation with the fiction writer and essayist Dahlia de la Cerda.

Guillermo Arriaga (Mexico), a writer and screenwriter, has won prizes such as the Mazatlán and the Alfaguara as a novelist, as well as the Best Screenwriter award at the Cannes Festival and the Golden Lion at Venice; he has also received nominations for an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a Bafta. At this event, the multi-talented writer for print and screen presents his latest novel, Extrañas, a bildungsroman set in 18th-century England that tells of the fascinating rise of science during the Enlightenment period, and its opposition to religion, the irrational and the monstrous side to human nature. In conversation with David Marcial Pérez.