Hay Festival Arequipa 2021

Andri Snaer Magnason is one of the foremost writers of child and young adult literature in Iceland, as well as a film director and the winner of various prestigious literary awards, including the 2013 Philip K. Dick Award and the 2021 Icelandic National Broadcasting Service Prize. He has acted as the Vice-president of the Icelandic Union of Writers, is a member of the Reykjavik Culture House, and has even been a presidential candidate for his country. His latest book, On Time and Water, a publishing success in various countries, is a fascinating reflection on the climate emergency, based on the views of the great global authorities on climate change. This delicate work of non-fictional narrative makes a call to human beings to take responsibility for our home, Earth. He will talk about this urgent matter with Alejandra Martins.

Simultaneous translation from English to Spanish available

The French writer of Spanish origin, Victoria Mas, arrived on the literary scene with a major success: her multi-award-winning novel The Mad Women’s Ball, which is now in the process of being translated into over 20 languages. The book is set in late 19th-century Paris and explores the lives of women who are interned in the psychiatric hospital La Salpêtrière, run by the famous neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot, a precursor of Freud who was interested in the disorder that was the main focus for the incipient field of psychiatry: hysteria. Mas talks about how, for example, the middle classes went to the hospital to attend the great mid-lent ball, at which women who were normally repudiated and stigmatized gave a performance with their own bodies, to the rhythm of waltzes and polkas. The protagonists of this tragic story, Louise and Eugene, try to escape from a terrible confinement that has happened against their will. Victoria Mas will talk to the Colombian writer and journalist Felipe Restrepo Pombo.

Simultaneous translation from French to Spanish

Jorge Eslava is the prolific author of over fifty books for children and young adults, as well as several poetry books and works of non-fiction. He has won the IBBY Prize for Children’s Literature, the 1981 Peru Young Poetry Prize, and the 1982 Copé Prize. At this event he presents his most recent title, Rodillas sucias, a book with six stories about the traditional games enjoyed by Peruvian children, written for the bicentenary of the nation’s independence, to be commemorated with the assistance of the country’s children.

The Moroccan writer and filmmaker, Abdellah Taïa, has written six novels and directed the film Salvation Army, based on his novel of the same name. At this event, the author will present his latest work, La vie lente (2021), which tells the story of friendship between two neighbours, Munir, a 40-year-old homosexual Parisian, and Madame Marty, an elderly women in her 80s. The plot takes a turn when, after the Paris attacks of 2015, the police come looking for Munir: it was Madame Marty who has reported him. In conversation with Jesús Martínez.

Simultaneous translation from French to Spanish

Nadia Hafid is a Spanish illustrator, the child of Moroccan parents, whose comics have appeared in major media outlets such as The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Economist, Monocle magazine, El País and others. She is the author of the graphic novel El buen padre (2020), which combines text and illustration to tell the story of her family, beginning with the life of her father who emigrated to Spain and disappeared during her childhood and continuing with the conflicts of identity that result from this past. At this workshop, Hafid offers some key points for narrating with both words and images.

Amaia Arrazola is an illustrator, writer and muralist. She is the author of the book and game Animales fantásticos, which can be used to combine shapes and the sounds that animals make to create new, fantastic animals. Amaia invites us to free our imaginations to roam through the pages of this book full of extraordinary creatures yet to be discovered.

Download Amaia's drawings to do this activity here

111 is an extraordinary duet interpreted by the dancers Joel Brown and Eve Mutso which explores the strengths and vulnerabilities of both performers. Joel Brown is a self-taught paraplegic dancer who is a member of the inclusive UK dance company, CandoCo. Eve Mutso, who is currently a freelance dancer and choreographer, was first ballerina of the Scottish Ballet. The number 111, which gives the work its title, makes reference to the vertebrae shared by Brown and Mutso. Brown’s spine has eleven fused vertebrae, and Mutso is so flexible that it "seems she has a hundred". They will be sharing excerpts from 111 and afterwards will talk about their work with Susan Hay, a cultural manager with extensive experience in the world of dance and the arts.

Sign language interpretation will be offered for the conversation

Losing a loved one was always hard, but the Covid-19 pandemic has made the process worse. Loses have become more awkward; often a relative has gone to the hospital and never been seen again, with no goodbyes possible because of the sanitary constraints. Funerals might be carried out on Zoom, when at all, and the bereaved have not been able to receive hugs of consolation. With all this in mind, this conversation brings together specialists to talk about the different ways of dealing with grief, and they will tell us stories of the uncertainty caused by the fear of death, the fear of loss and testimony of pain and mourning. They will also talk about how people react in different ways during grieving, with different emotional responses when faced with loss: some become depressed, triggering a family crisis, and in other cases people have undergone a process of renewal, and have found the motivation to move on. With the writer Alonso Cueto, the psychoanalyst Moisés Lemlij Malamud and the director of the NGO CEDRO Carmen Masías Claux in conversation with the Head of Content at El Comercio newspaper, Jaime Bedoya.

The landmark documentary La revolución y la tierra, directed by Gonzalo Benavente and co-written by Grecia Barbieri and the film’s director, tells the story of the Agricultural Reform of Juan Velasco Alvarado, 50 years after this important historical event. This documentary, which was released in 2019, was a success in Peru and gave rise to the book La revolución imaginada, which explores the making of the documentary, the historical documentation that the script was based on, and includes over 30 essays and articles about the subject matter of La revolución y la tierra written by major Peruvian figures, including Carlos León Moya, who will moderate this conversation.

César Hildebrandt is considered to be Peru’s most influential journalist. Over the course of his career, he has featured in over ten television programmes, he is the author of five books and also edits the magazine Hildebrandt en sus trece, a weekly publication that disseminates confrontational, documented, secular journalism. In 2021 Hildebrandt published a memoir entitled Confesiones de un inquisidor, in which he recounts and reflects on his career and his private life, from his days as a secondary school pupil to the impact of his work on Peruvian public opinion, his analysis of politics, his relationship with television and the media, his experience as a Peruvian abroad, and his view of his country’s past and present. This outstanding writer, journalist and thinker will talk to the editor of El País América, Jan Martínez Ahrens.

Susana Baca is one of the outstanding figures in Afro-Peruvian culture. This former Minister of Culture was President of the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Council, has won three Latin Grammys, and has toured the world with her wonderful voice. The outstanding writer and journalist Jeremías Gamboa has just published the biographical book, Susana Baca, which tells the story of the extraordinary life of this singer for a young readership. Baca, the book’s subject, and Gamboa, the narrator, will talk about Baca’s life and how her experiences, expressed through an inspirational story, might motivate young readers to follow their dreams.