Hay Festival Arequipa 2021 – Equality

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is considered to be one of the most talented writers on the international scene, as the author of contemporary classics such as Half of a Yellow Sun, Americanah and the essay We Should All Be Feminists. Her most recent work is entitled Notes on Grief, and in it the author talks about her mourning after the death of her father, setting her thoughts within the context of the global pandemic, obliged to grieve at a distance since she was unable to leave the United States while her father was dying on another continent. This moving work will resonate with the experiences of millions of people around the world, at this moment of great trauma when grief, loss and death have become an even greater presence for so many people all over the planet. In conversation with writer Santiago Roncagliolo.

Few regions of the world have undergone such political upheaval as Latin America in recent times. The continent has been the setting for numerous socio-political protests and movements, in which very different nations have experienced similar discontent and social agitation. It is possible that this is the result of the common colonial-historical background, which has resulted in most cases in very polarized societies, with high levels of poverty and inequality, which have only increased with the health emergency caused by the pandemic. The journalist and writer Martín Caparrós (Argentina), the journalist Moisés Naím (Venezuela), the historian Natalia Sobrevilla (Peru) and the journalist Michael Reid (United Kingdom) will talk to the journalist Jacqueline Fowks (Peru) with the goal of trying to understand and find common ground regarding the complexity of the social processes that are happening on our continent.

The Hay Festival, with the support of our regional ally SURA and together with El País, has worked with some of the planet’s most brilliant minds to create the series of digital events Imagina el mundo. This fourth series pays homage to themes developed by the philosopher Edgar Morin, vital to an understanding of the challenges and problems of the contemporary world. César Rendueles (Spain) is a philosopher and professor of sociological theory at the Faculty of Political Science of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He has also been professor at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and guest speaker at several Spanish and Latin American Universities. He will talk about his latest book, Contra la igualdad de oportunidades: Un panfleto igualitarista, where he analyzes the so-called egalitarianism derived from policies of equality of opportunities, which he identifies as a form of elitism that benefits those how have the most. In this fascinating talk, Rendueles asserts the need for a more balanced society that takes into account the necessities of each individual.