Hay Festival Querétaro 2023 – Hay Festival Joven Querétaro

Forget about finding a soulmate and accept that you are not going to find your ideal partner, since they don’t exist. Love is untimely, indescribable and is inextricably linked to anguish. In short, love is impossible. Using accessible and direct language, Darío Sztajnszrajber (Argentina) has brought philosophy to large audiences. In the eight theses of El amor es imposible, he dismantles the myth of normative romantic love. The philosopher questions ideas such as the perfect partner and invites us to rethink the notion of heartbreak as part of the desire for the impossible.

Selected by Granta in 2023 as one of the Best of Young British Novelists, Eley Williams has already established herself as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary British fiction through story collections such as Attrib. and Other Stories and the novel The Liar’s Dictionary, named by The Guardian as one of the Best Books of 2021 and winner of the Betty Trask Prize. A writer for whom language always takes centre stage, Williams delights in shifting registers, playing with rhythm, and experimenting with a wit that is as singular as it is infectious.

Event in English
With the support of British Council
Free event for the university community

Manuel Marsol’s (Spain) father passed away when he was just 11 years old. This event has left its mark on the work of this illustrator, who expresses his affection for his father through memories and through fantasy. He did so in the illustrated book Astro, an allegory about the love between a father and a son, told through the story of a stranded astronaut who finds himself on a distant planet under the care of an alien. And he has done so once again in El cielo en casa, where a photograph of a penalty kick taken by his father in 1970—capturing the ball suspended in mid-air, leaving us forever unable to know whether it ended in a goal—becomes the starting point for an exploration of childhood memory: a song, a few films, the penalty Roberto Baggio famously blasted over the bar, unanswered questions, and spheres spinning through space for eternity.

The Spaniard Javier Serena is the editor of the acclaimed journal of literary criticism and thought Cuadernos hispanoamericanos, which specialises in Spanish-language literature from both continents. He is also the author of several novels, the most recent of which is Apuntes para una despedida, the story of a relationship marked by desire, frustration and inevitable loss. He will be speaking to Silvia Ruiz Tresgallo (Mexico) about the interplay between his editorial work and the creativity behind his works of fiction.

Defining María Galindo (Bolivia) is to talk about anarcho-feminism; about the Mujeres Creando movement; the idea of the “tecnoshaman”; and about books such as Feminismo bastardo, Ninguna mujer nace para puta and No se puede descolonizar sin despatriarcalizar. About occupying the streets, as if they were trenches; about deconsecrating the academy; and disputing feminism from the south and from the periphery; all through activism, campaigning and provocation. There are many “Galindos” in this unmanageable writer, whom we will meet at this event with María Michelle Villanueva Moreno (Mexico).

“I would have appreciated a note.” Thus begins Reliquia, beneath which lies a question: is it possible to find the words for a farewell that never took place? Ten years after his father’s suicide, Pol Guasch writes his first work of non-fiction, in which he seeks to understand and reconstruct, while reflecting on farewells and on those who leave without saying goodbye. Yet “sometimes there are no final words to bring anything to a close”.

There are books that are best understood through the author’s life story. Rosa Ramírez Mazaheri was born in Mazatlán, Sinaloa; she emigrated to the United States at the age of thirteen and graduated from Smith College, where she studied Spanish and Latin American Studies, specialising in subversive poetry written by women and queer people in Latin America. The protagonist of Material inflamable is also a Mexican woman studying at a university in Massachusetts; a young woman who reflects on her roots and mixes Spanish and English in her writing — although, what is your mother tongue when you have crossed the border at a young age? A novel that swings between reality and delirium, drawing us into the protagonist’s internal struggle with mental health and addiction. In conversation with Iliana Padilla.

In a country where literature often tackles the most horrific forms of violence in society, Liliana Blum (Mexico) has surprised everyone by doing the same with the most sordid aspects of human nature. Pandora explored sexual paraphilias, perversions and relationships rife with abuse, fatphobia and social complicity. She has since continued to delve into the macabre with El monstruo pentápodo and Cara de liebre. A decade later, she has just reissued Pandora, with a foreword written by her and previously unpublished chapters. An unmissable opportunity to reopen the box of the monstrously human.

Creativity is found in the everyday: in the disciplines we study and the knowledge we acquire. Science, mathematics, engineering, psychology, arts... everything stems from the imagination. That is why poetry can open us up to new ways of thinking and make us more inclined to shift our perspective. The British-Ugandan poet Nick Makoha is offering a creative poetry writing workshop where he will dialogue with participants, provide reading materials, and create a space for everyone to spark their creativity. A workshop where language, memory, observation, and storytelling will serve as the pathway to exploring the world we inhabit.

Event in English

A bond that both connects and divides a mother and daughter, a relationship that shifts between affection and cruelty, tenderness and mutual resentment, between what is frustrating and what remains unresolved. In My Phantoms, Gwendoline Riley (UK) portrays the complex relationship between Helen Grant and her daughter Bridge, driven by a question that lingers to the very last page: why did things never quite work out? She will join Raquel Ortiz Ledesma and María José Vázquez de la Mora to discuss the uncomfortable realities of family relationships.

Event in English

The Spanish writer Cristina Monge is the current winner of the Paidós Essay Prize for Contra el descontento. In it, she analyses the main challenges of the century, such as job insecurity, digital loneliness and disaffection towards institutions and their representatives. The author argues that we are living through a period of profound discontent that calls democratic coexistence into question; a critical analysis that culminates, however, in a hopeful outlook on this collective unease: if we revive public discourse, if we defend the facts and rebuild a new social contract, we will strengthen democracy.

Few people know the brain better than Jesús Ramírez-Bermúdez, a doctor specialising in neuropsychiatry at the National Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery; and even fewer have done such extensive work in popularising not only science but also culture, with books such as Melancolía creativa, Depresión: la noche más oscura and Paramnesia. A journey into the depths where human creativity is born, in conversation with Marie Bedos.

Whoever controls AI will control the world. This warning —issued by Vladimir Putin in 2017— reflects an ongoing reality: technological development has concentrated power —economic, ideological and political— as never before. The race to dominate this new architecture of reality is advancing without us fully understanding what is happening, with tools capable of generating falsehoods on an unprecedented scale. Moreover, how can we even begin to regulate a technology that is evolving at such a dizzying pace? Pedro Salazar Ugarte, a researcher at UNAM and author of Totalitarianism Total, talks to César Andrés García Sánchez about this reconfiguration of power.