Hay Festival Segovia 2022

A looped screening of the documentary of the performance carried out at last year's Hay Festival Segovia by the AIDA Association, called The Theory of Unification: the sheep of Mr. Montes, directed by Luis Mengs and produced by the AIDA Association. 400 sheep belonging to Mr. Rafael Montes were herded to the Segovia aqueduct. The sheep each had the words YES or NO written on their backs, and formed random groups and clusters, which tried to illustrate Einstein's Unification Theory, as well as the possibility of individuals living together in peace, despite their different opinions. This performance was part of Kate Daudy and Kostya Novoselov's international art and science project called "Everything is connected".

The first afternoon sessions will feature Luis Mengs and Javier Gila, director and executive producer of the short documentary film.

The future of our societies depends on the commitment to preserve our planet earth and its ecosystem. In an immersive and thought-provoking conversation three distinguished visionaries —Vincent Doumeizel, Valerie Trouet and David Lindo— will explore their unique perspectives on nature and the profound wisdom it offers in a conversation with sustainability expert Isabela del Alcázar.

Doumeizel is a renowned French environmentalist and sustainability advocate, in his last book he reflects on powering the seaweed revolution. Trouet is a Belgian paleoclimatologist whose book Tree Story: The History of the World Written in Rings received such as Doumeizel’s an outstanding acclamation by the critique. Lindo on his side is known by many as “the urban birder”, prominent naturalist and broadcaster on the BBC, he is considered as one of the world's leading experts in ornithological tourism and urban birds. How will be the unveiled harmony of nature?

The publishing house Caballo de Troya summons the three writers chosen in 2023, Aida González Rossi, Violeta Gil and Margaryta Yakovenko, for a conversation about their latest works. Within the similarities and divergences in the works of these three Caballo de Troya authors, they will open up a space for reflection on the new narrative voices in the work of a publishing house that functions as a political and social tool, with books that make people uncomfortable and authors that write shamelessly.

At the end of the event, the authors will sign copies of their books at the library.

Event in Spanish

The war in Ukraine and its effects on geopolitics and the economy in Europe are reasons to bring to the fore a debate on the role of European values today. Hay Festival Segovia invites the professor of International Law and jurist José Maria Beneyto and Carmen Sanz, president of the Norwegian Chamber of Commerce in Spain and president of the European Chambers, for this semester of the year. She is participating on behalf of the 14 European Chambers in Spain to talk about the subject.

Event in Spanish

Throughout society, the role of women has not yet reached full equality with that of men. One of the most important issues is the invisibilisation of women over the age of 50, which occurs both in life —with professional, emotional and sexual obstacles— and in art, where they are not represented or offered models they can identify with. Elia Barceló, in her literary work, aims to give voice and prominence to women who, with extensive life experience behind them, still have a long future ahead. She will talk about this with Marisol Teso, head of Culture at Mediaset.

Barceló is considered one of the most versatile authors on the current literary scene, as well as one of the most prestigious in the field of fantasy and science fiction. She has published 30 novels, some for adults and others for young people, and some 90 short stories, in Spain and abroad. She is the author of highly successful works such as El color del silencio, El secreto del orfebre, Las largas sombras, El eco de la piel, La noche de plata, Muerte en Santa Rita and the most recent, Amores que matan. She has won numerous awards. In 2020, she was awarded the National Literature Prize in the Children's and Young People's category for El efecto Frankenstein (The Frankenstein Effect).

At the end of the event, the author will sign copies of her books at the book stall on Calle Real.

Event in Spanish

How can virtual reality enhance a cultural experience? The Immersive Learning department and the Division of Arts and Humanities at IE University have curated a series of experiences for the participants of this year's Hay Festival Segovia, in which you can experience virtual reality and its applications to education.

How to make collaborative decisions to help our planet? In the Eye of the Storm is a three-part immersive experience about climate change. The participant will undergo an emotional and alarming personal experience of a hurricane, using virtual reality goggles, learn about one of the five key decision-makers in the climate change conversation through multimedia material and prepare for a role-based discussion on climate action.

This masterclass for 30 participants will be given by Isabela del Alcazar and Gonzalo Delacamara, sustainability experts.

Throughout the day from 11am to 7pm, except during masterclass times, festival-goers will be able to explore the metaverse and visit the IE Virtual Gallery on Spatial.io. They can also take in the exhibition of the winning photographs from the 2022 IE Foundation Prize in Humanities.

Free Admission every 30 minutes. Up to 30 participants at a time (Except from 12:00 to 12:50 and 18:00 to 19:15, as masterclass are scheduled)

Masterclass: 9 euros

Event in English

For fourteen editions, this activity has combined poetry with the beauty of a city set in unique surroundings. This time, the ancient stones of the Library of the Casa de la Lectura welcome the voices of the poets themselves, who will read their own works and those of their favourite writers. The poet Amalia Iglesias and the journalists and writers Carlos Aganzo, Carlos Hernández-Lahoz and Angélica Tanarro will take part.

Event in Spanish

The winner of the 35th edition of the Loewe Poetry Prize, Cuban Reiniel Pérez Ventura, will read a selection of poems from his collection of poems Las sílabas y el cuerpo, in a conversation with journalist and director of ABC Cultural, Jesús García Calero.

At the end of the event, the author will sign copies of his books at the book stall in Calle Real.

Event in Spanish

Prof. Adrian Geuze founded West 8 in 1987, an industry-leading, international landscape architecture firm, working across the fields of infrastructure, landscape and urban design. Headquartered in Rotterdam, and with offices in Belgium and North America, West 8 has established itself as a leading practice with a diverse and multi-disciplinary team of 70 architects, urban designers, landscape architects and industrial engineers. Geuze is internationally acclaimed for his pioneering work in the Netherlands and abroad and his oeuvre includes two transformational metropolitan parks in Madrid – Madrid Río along the Manzanares river and Parque Central in Madrid Nuevo Norte; Governors Island in New York; Jubilee Gardens in London and Yongsan National Park in Seoul, South Korea. In 2022, Adriaan Geuze was appointed as Professor of Landscape Architecture at Technical University Delft and was awarded the Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Award by the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA) stating him and his firm as changing the relationship between cities, nature, and people.

Geuze will converse about the relation between healthy cities, people, parks and architecture with David Goodman, Dean of IE School of Architecture and Design whose recent research deals with innovations in architecture practice and production during times of socioeconomic turbulence.

The event will be introduced by Roel Nieuwenkamp, Ambassador of the Netherlands in Spain.

After decades of leading the drive towards a green economy, Europe is now falling behind China - and faces the prospect of also being overtaken by the US. Beijing is already an electric vehicle, solar and wind juggernaut and has a growing stranglehold on critical minerals. Now, Joe Biden's ground-breaking Inflation Reduction Act is changing the global green game, luring business, investment and jobs to America. Europe is responding. But is it really up to the fight? Join Jesse Norman, UK transport, technology and decarbonisation minister, Pilita Clark, Financial Times columnist and associate editor, Bianca Dragomir, director of Clean Tech for Iberia, Gonzalo Delacámara, an international expert on water and energy economics, and María Margarete Goose, German Ambassador in Spain, in conversation with Frederick Studemann, FT Literary editor.

The place: a decadent Venetian palace. The character: Inspector Kraken. Eva García Sáenz de Urturi weaves a tapestry of intrigues in which no one is free of suspicion and in which the present gives us deep hints about a dark past. A puzzle that Inspector Kraken tries to piece together through the keen pen of this writer from Vitoria —one of the most widely read novelists in Spain —in her latest novel: El ángel de la ciudad. Author of works such as El Libro Negro de las Horas and the Trilogía de la Ciudad Blanca, and having won the 2020 Planeta Prize with Aquitania, the author will talk about her latest work in conversation with the journalist Jesús Vigorra.

The author will sign her books in the theatre at the end of the event.

Event in Spanish

A new instalment of Propios y Ajenos (Our Own and Others' Works), a cycle of live poetry readings now in its 15th year as part of Hay Festival Segovia will take place in the Romeral de San Marcos, the private garden of the landscape designer and architect Leandro Silva, whose work included the restoration of the Botanical Gardens of Madrid. José Antonio Municio, an expert on the garden's history, will reveal some of its secrets.

The winner of the 35th LOEWE Poetry Prize, Reiniel Pérez Ventura, will read poems from his collection of poems Las sílabas y el cuerpo. Museologist Julia Casaravilla, poet Carlos Aganzo, UK Ambassador to Spain Hugh Elliott, ambassador of Belgium in Spain, Gerard Cockx, Hay Festivals CEO Julie Finch, writer Elia Barceló, artisan Belén Ferrier, poets Amelia Iglesias, Angélica Tanarro and Carlos Hernández-Lahoz as well as the President of the Hay Festivals Caroline Michel will read their own texts or those of their favourite poets in a stroll through the leafy corners of the Jardín Romeral de San Marcos. The readers will be led by masters of ceremony Cristina Ward and Félix Valdivieso.

Event with readings in Spanish, English and French.

We all start out from a very similar point. We are all potential geniuses; the trick is to find and bring out our potential. And what better time than childhood? In this workshop, led by the writer Arturo Torres Moreno, we will delve into the lives of Nobel Prize winners. The author will use this to get the children to explore their own dreams and prove that we are all geniuses, so let’s show it!

Event in Spanish

Paris-based Italian writer Andrea Marcolongo is an international phenomenon. A scholar of ancient Greece and Rome, in her latest book there is a thread that connects the epic of the warriors and navigators of ancient mythology with the venerable salon of the École Militaire in Paris. Marcolongo herself is a member of Les Écrivains de marine (Writers of the French Navy), a select club to which other illustrious figures such as Arturo Pérez-Reverte belong, and which has its headquarters in the 18th-century complex of buildings opposite the Eiffel Tower. Andrea Marcolongo (Milan, 1987), writer and journalist, holds a degree in Classical Literature from the University of Milan. She is the author of the literary phenomenon The Language of the Gods (2017), The Measure of Heroes (2019) and La lezione di Enea (2020). Her books have been translated into 28 languages.

She will be in conversation with Juan Cruz, a prominent Spanish writer and journalist, who has spent most of his professional career at the newspaper El País; he is currently attached to the presidency of Prensa Ibérica and writes in the media of this group. He has been awarded prizes such as the Azorín prize for novels and the National Prize for Cultural Journalism.

The event will be presented by the general director of the Banco Sabadell Foundation, Sonia Mulero.

After the event, the authors will sign copies of their books at the book stall at the entrance of IE University.

Event in Spanish.

In the shadows behind official versions of Spanish history, are countless sensational episodes, replete with carnal passions, that altered the course of events or changed them completely without ever being officially documented. In her latest book, Lo que la primavera hace con los cerezos, journalist and writer Marta Robles has travelled through the history of this country in search of all the amorous and sexual adventures that marked power relationships and secret decisions that influenced the course of events.

She talks about the intricacies of love and power with Juan José Güemes, former Minister for Employment and Health of the Madrid Region, who has chaired IE Business School's Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation since 2010.

Event in Spanish

The British Council School Ensemble is an orchestra formed by school students, teachers from the Music21 programme, and alumni who get together to enjoy musical expression. Their repertoire includes from baroque and classical pieces to popular and current ones. The school is committed to musical development, not only for the artistic results that are gained through learning, but also for the values that are acquired through teamworking, which include loyalty, challenge, flexibility, resilience, and care for one another. The British Council School is a bicultural School which contributes to the British Council’s global mission of promoting British culture and its language, as well as building connections with cultures from all around the world.

The concert program A journey through European music from the Baroque to the present day is as follows:

- Concerto for viola and orchestra, 1st and 2nd movement. G. Ph. Telemann.

Soloist Sefa Lafarga

- Concerto No. 2 for oboe and orchestra, 1st movement. A. Marcello,

Soloist: Alvaro Vaquero

- Hymn to Joy. L.V. Beethoven

- Andante for saxophone and orchestra. Raphael Villanueva.

Soloist Pablo Castaño

- Carmen Fantasy. G. Bizet

- Timelapse. M. Nyman

- Eleanor Rigby. The Beatles. Arr. R. Villanueva.

- Pirates of the Caribbean. K. Badelt

- Burn. Deep Purple

When the author delivers his or her literary work, it sets off along a tempestuous path, and sometimes the trail is lost. To what extent should a translator maintain a thread that links him or her to the writer of the text he or she is confronted with? Does it improve the work if author and translator know each other personally? Translators can be said to be firm allies of Europe’s linguistic richness, spreading diversity across national borders. Rosa Montero will talk about all this with Myriam Chirousse, the translator of her novels into French.

A native of Madrid, she studied journalism and psychology. She is the author of the novels Crónica del desamor, Te trataré como a una reina, Amado amo, Temblor, Bella y oscura, La hija del caníbal (Primavera Prize), El corazón del Tártaro, La loca de la casa (Qué Leer Prize and Grinzane Cavour Prize), Historia del Rey Transparente (Qué Leer Prize), La ridícula idea de no volver a verte and El peligro de estar cuerda. Her journalistic career has been recognised, among others, with the National Journalism Prize, the Rodríguez Santamaría Prize and the El Mundo Journalism Prize. She was awarded the Premio Nacional de las Letras in November 2017 in recognition of her career as a novelist, journalist and essayist.

The event will be moderated by Isabelle Berneron, attaché for books, ideas and media networks at the Institut Français D'Espagne.

There will be a book signing after the event.

Event in Spanish

The history of the press and journalism is a permanent exercise in tension and the search for flexibility between those who run and those who write for the media. Is a middle ground that leaves everyone satisfied possible, or are such relationships doomed to failure in the end? Nacho Cardero and Juan Soto Ivars talk about freedom in the media and how far it can be maintained without betraying principles and ideals.

Cardero, who has directed El Confidencial since 2011, is an experienced journalist who has worked in media such as El Mundo, and La Clave magazine as finance section head. He is the author of books such as Los PPijos (2004) and Los señores del ladrillo (2011). Soto Ivars is a writer and journalist who has worked in media such as El País and El Confidencial, where he has the section La trinchera cultural (The Cultural Trenches). Much of his literary production has focused on censorship and self-censorship of media and authors, with works such as Un abuelo rojo y otro abuelo facha (2016), Poscensura (2017), and Arden las redes (2017).

At the end of the event, the authors will sign copies of their books at the book stall on Calle Real.

Event in Spanish

The world of science is advancing at a rapid pace of constant discovery and technological mergers that make what was once considered impossible now possible. Carlos Franganillo, one of the most popular faces of news broadcasting in Spain, is a journalist with extensive international experience. One of his latest projects, 10,000 Days, which he directs and presents on Spanish TV Channel: La 1, is a documentary series that analyzes the changes society will face in the coming years. In this questioning about the evolution of biotechnology, he sits down with author Diego del Alcázar, whose debut novel La Genética del Tiempo (The Genetics of Time) a thriller, provides readers with a glimpse into the challenges that genetic editing presents in terms of improving human nature. This is a new facet for Diego del Alcázar, who, in his day-to-day professional life, leads the strategy of an international university.

At the end of the event, the author will sign his work at the bookstand in front of the IE University.

Event in Spanish with simultaneous translation into English

MP Jesse Norman’s witty historical novel The Winding Stair is the story of the rivalry between scholar Francis Bacon and Edward Coke, already acclaimed as the greatest lawyer of his generation. As Queen Elizabeth I is dying and James I waiting to accede, Bacon and Coke are locked in a bitter struggle for influence and power in the palaces, parliaments and royal courts. Norman, the MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire and currently Minister of State in the Department for Transport, discusses combining history and fiction to create a tale of political machinations.

Jesse Norman talks with British journalist Martin Ivens, Editor of the Times Literary Supplement and former editor of the Sunday Times.

The event will be introduced by Hugh Elliott, UK Ambassador to Spain.

At the end of the event, the author will sign his works at the book stall outside IE University.

Event with simultaneous translation from English to Spanish.