Hay Festival Segovia 2022

War extends far beyond the front line. It affects millions of people; their way of life, their economy, culture and heritage. Two experienced journalists will talk about how to tell the story of a war, with all that this implies: María Sahuquillo, El País correspondent in Ukraine and Ramón Lobo, who has been a war correspondent in Iraq, Palestine and Chechnya.

Event in Spanish

The current international geopolitical situation makes it imperative to highlight, explore and debate the role of European values today. The Hay Festival invites Esteban González Pons, writer and MEP for the Partido Popular, a figure with a long political career, to do so along with Sara Bieger, representing the 14 European Chambers of Commerce in Spain.

A lawyer and writer, González Pons has held numerous posts in national and European politics. He has been an MEP since 2014, which gives him a broad insight to the issues to be addressed. Sara Bieger is managing partner of Alto Partners Executive Search and president of the Franco-Spanish Chamber of Commerce.

They will talk to the journalist Sandrine Morel of the French newspaper Le Monde.

Event in Spanish

Historian, television presenter, fiction writer and essayist, Simon Sebag Montefiore was present for the last days of the Soviet Union and travelled around the region during the 1990s. He has written on Russia for The Sunday Times, The New York Times and The Spectator, among other magazines and newspapers. A number of his book, including Stalin>: The Court of the Red Tsar, Titans of History and Jerusalem: The Biography have been translated into Spanish. The last book published in Spain by this writer, a descendent of a distinguished family of Sephardic Jews that had branches all over Europe, has been Written in History, a compilation of important letters written about politics, culture and art by great figures who have influenced our past.

Sebag Montefiore will talk to the British journalist Martin Ivens, Editor of The Times Literary Supplement.

Once the event has finished, the author will sign books in the booth outside IE University.

With simultaneous translation from English into Spanish

Mark Muller Stuart QC is a leading barrister specialising in international law, terrorism and human rights litigation. He has been a member of the Queen's Counsel since 2006 and advises numerous international law organisations.

He has also written a number of books and reports on human rights and conflict-related areas, having conducted international missions in Afghanistan, Sudan, Palestine, Iraq, Oman, Bahrain, Syria, Libya, Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, India, Cuba, Colombia, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Afghanistan. He is co-founder of the Delfina Arts Foundation, as well as founder and executive director of Beyond Borders, an international platform based in Scotland that works to break down borders between peoples and help facilitate wider international cultural exchange, dialogue and reconciliation.

Álvaro Gil Robles is a prestigiuos Spanish politician and lawyer, former Ombudsman and the first Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe. He has held several positions in important official bodies, among them, candidate of the European Court of Human Rights, integrating the Selection Committe, the body in charge of the Peace Agreement between the Government and the FAR, and selecting the magistrates of the special jurisdiction for the Peace Process of Colombia with President Juan Manuel Santos. He has written several books and articles in his field of expertise, including: Los Nuevos Límites de la Tutela Judicial (The New Limits of Judicial Protection). He is the President of the Valsain Foundation for the promotion and defence of democratic values, founded with a group of friends with significant work in the dissemination of these values.

Event in English with simultaneous translation into Spanish

Russia is the latest work by the British historian and novelist, Antony Beevor. This World War II specialist returns to non-fiction, and to an area he knows well: Russia after the tsars. The struggle that took place between 1917 and 1921 between an alliance of moderate socialists and reactionary monarchists, and Trotsky’s Red Army, as well as Lenin’s subsequent dictatorship, are the themes of this work, which draws on the latest scholarship in the field. The book depicts this period and its conflicts as a world war by proxy, through the eyes of different figures, including a worker in the streets of Petrograd, a cavalry officer, and a woman doctor in a makeshift hospital. This multi-award winning author, translated into over thirty languages (published in Spanish by Crítica), will talk to one of our most prestigious writers, the academic Antonio Muñoz Molina, the author of titles such as El jinete polaco and Volver a dónde.

The event will be presented by Carmen Esteban, CEO of Crítica publishing house.

Once the event has finished, the authors will sign books in the booth outside IE University.

With simultaneous translation from English into Spanish and vice versa