Hay Festival Arequipa 2021 – Language

Gloria Mendoza Borda (Peru) is a Peruvian-born poet whose work has been translated into Aymara, English, French, Portuguese, Italian and Greek. She has directed literary projects, including the Arequipa Alianza Francesa’s Literary Thursdays, and the Tertulia Literaria Itinerante initiative. In 2020 she published the poetry book Amusa. David Robertson (Canada) is a writer and speaker. He is a member of the Norway House Cree nation and has published over 25 books, a number of which have featured on Canadian educational syllabuses. His most recent work is the illustrated children’s book On the Trapline, which celebrates some of the indigenous traditions of Canada. They will talk to Ingrid Bejerman.

Simultaneous translation from English to Spanish available

The English version of this event is availble here to watch again

Mererid Hopwood (United Kingdom) has a degree in Spanish and German and a doctorate in German Literature. Winner of the PEN Wales Emyr Humphreys Award, she is one of the most highly-regarded Welsh authors and she is dedicated to promoting the Welsh language and traditional Welsh poetry. At this event, Mererid will talk about Welsh poetry and culture, reflecting on matters such as the value of literature, language and peace. The roots of the Hay Festival are in Wales, a country that is less well known than its neighbour, England, and a country that has a language and a culture which are very old and very rich. In this talk, Mererid shares some words from her language that are practically impossible to translate to contemplate landscapes, poetry and peace. Mererid is the Cymrawd Rhyngwladol Cymru Greadigol Hay Festival 2020-21/ Hay Festival Creative Wales International Fellow 2020-21.

Manuel “Manny” Medrano (U.S.A.) was an Economics student at Harvard when he deciphered an accounting system based on knots, called quipus, used by the Inca Empire to take accounts and store information. Medrano is now a researcher in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, where he continues to analyse archaeological, historical and ethnographical information in order to learn more about the pre-Hispanic world through this language that reveals so much about the socioeconomic transformations undergone by the indigenous Peruvians with the arrival of the conquest and the subsequent colonization of American territory. Medrano writes about his findings in his new book Quipus. Mil años de historia anudada en los Andes y su futuro digital (2021). In conversation with the Peruvian archaeologist Ulla Holmquist.