Hay Festival Querétaro 2023 – Hay Festival Joven Querétaro

The Epistolary Literary Prize Cartas a Rosario pays tribute to writer Rosario Castellanos as a conmemoration of the centenial of her birth. Mildred Calvillo, winner of the postgraduate category, and Diana Jiménez, winner of the undergraduate category, talk about the anthology published by Editciones UNAM, with litters written to her by students. In conversation with Iliana Padilla.

Ramón Gener (Spain) has found a true vocation in education on the subject of music, bringing his love of opera and art to new audiences. More than just a conversation, he will offer a journey of (re)discovery, allowing music to excite us, and talking about Historia de un piano, a captivating novel about the life of an instrument that becomes a metaphor for the redemptive power of love, friendship, beauty and, of course, music. In conversation with Felipe Bohorquez.

With the arrival of large language models such as ChatGPT, the whole world has been turned upside down. Will our brains be replaced by technology? What are the risks and the opportunities? Elisa Guerra, educator, author of La enseñanza en la cuarta revolución industrial and a member of the UNESCO International Forum on the Futures of Education, will try to answer an important question: can schooling survive the invasion of artificial intelligence?

In La hermana, the Argentinean journalist Liliana Viola reconstructs the story of Martha Pelloni, the nun who challenged the political authorities of Catamarca (Argentina) in the 1990s after the rape and murder of the young woman María Soledad Morales. A profile and a work of literary journalism that has won the 6th Anagrama Reporting/Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Foundation Award. In conversation with Carmen Dolores Carrillo Juarez.

In his fascinating work, To Catch a Dictator, Reed Brody (USA) shows how, sometimes, the struggle for justice and in favour of victims can overcome impunity. The lawyer known as the Dictator Hunter has written a book telling the story of the campaign to bring the Chadian dictator, Hissène Habré, known as the «African Pinochet», to trial. A reminder that even the most powerful tyrants can be brought to justice. In conversation with Noemí Rubio Gudiño.

Tania Tagle (Mexico) is a writer with a meticulous literary style, one employed in Fauce to tell how, after a bereavement, the protagonist finds the words to speak to her son through a fog of silence. In Jardines errantes, her previous book, she cultivates a garden of words with a sensitive approach that allows her experiences as a daughter, mother, reader and inhabitant of this world to flourish. In conversation with Jazmín Agreda Ríos.

In her long essay Això tan tenebrós, Mar García Puig (Spain) makes a defence of the power of figurative language, since existence unfolds among metaphors, and these represent not only all that exists, but everything we can conceive of. This is a matter that women know particularly well, given that they can give life, but also take it away. In conversation with Ester Bautista Botello.

After almost a decade of silence, Simon Reynolds (United Kingdom) is back with a very optimistic conclusion: that music has a future. If Retromania exposed the lack of innovation in the industry, on the other hand Futuromania maps the electronic soundscapes that are our present and future. From Kraftwerk to Daft Punk, via Giorgio Moroder, Arca and Travis Scott. In conversation with Ramón Santillana.

Event in English

In order to understand Un millón de cuartos propios (2025 Paidós Prize) by Tamara Tenenbaum, we must go back to mid-2022, when the Argentinean writer was asked to translate Virginia Woolf’s famous book, A Room of One’s Own. Against this background, she proposes a re-reading of the classic work in order to reflect on the current situation of women. Her view is that even a major landmark of feminism such as Woolf’s deserves an update, a hundred years after it was first published. In conversation with César Andrés García Sánchez.

Linda Kamau (Kenya) is a pioneer in the field of the inclusion of women in technology. As a co-founder of AkiraChix, she has trained hundreds of young people in programming, offering them tools to transform their lives and communities. She has been recognized by initiatives such as the Obama Foundation’s Leaders Africa programme, and is a member of the Segal Family Foundation. Her leadership has encouraged a generation of women who are transforming technology. In conversation with Enrique García Alcalá and Diana Hernández.

Event in English

Mariana Matija (Colombia) is a communicator and creative researcher who explores other relationships with the Earth and its creatures and cycles; she is also the author of Niñapájaroglaciar. With a familiar, reflective voice, she offers a proposal of conscious and harmonious relations with nature, based on an everyday ecology, one that is eminently possible. This would put care of the planet at the centre, and make it possible to live in the world in a more balanced way. In conversation with Naobi López Huerta.

Michel Nieva (Argentina) is a creator of gaucho-punk, which fuses the gauchesca tradition with the cyberpunk genre. In Ciencia ficción capitalista he draws our attention to the capitalist fantasies of the technological gurus. This essay explores how the language of science fiction has been kidnapped by the neoliberal ideas of Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg and co. In conversation with Abdiel Hernández Mendoza.

Tania Tagle (Mexico) is a writer with a meticulous literary style, one employed in Fauce to tell how, after a bereavement, the protagonist finds the words to speak to her son through a fog of silence. In Jardines errantes, her previous book, she cultivates a garden of words with a sensitive approach that allows her experiences as a daughter, mother, reader and inhabitant of this world to flourish. In conversation with professor Angélica Aguado.

Juan Gabriel Vásquez is one of the most celebrated and outstanding authors in contemporary Colombian literature. At this event he will talk about his most recent book, Los nombres de Feliza, a recreation of the life of the sculptor Feliza Bursztyn, who was a freethinking artist who went beyond the limits set by the times for women like her. This rigorous novel weaves together art, history and memoir. In conversation with Julieta Díaz Barrón.

In the tradition of Ibram X. Kendi (How To Be an Antiracist) and Djamila Ribeiro (Pequeno manual antirracista), the writer, translator and antiracist activist Jumko Ogata (Mexico) presents ¡Quiero ser antirracista!, a practical manual for taking a step forward and combatting structural racism in all its forms. In conversation with Paola Gallardo.

We know that the relationships between images and texts can be multiple and open, and can even go beyond logocentrism. In her performance/talk Hacer del ojo, mano. De la mano, ojo, the artist Mariela Sancari will explore the notion of heterotopía through photographs and texts. To do so, she will transform a table into a device for thinking: a surface where images and words participate in a play of ever-changing and reconfigurable relationships.