Hay Festival Querétaro 2024

Talk with Jumko Ogata

Antiracism and feminism

Saturday 6 September 2025, 12pm –  Casa de la Cultura Cayetano Rubio

It is not enough to feel antiracist or feminist. Racism and sexism must be fought actively in our communities, in our homes, on the Internet. However, it is only right that we wonder when and how to do it. These are questions that are tackled by the feminist and antiracist activist Jumko Ogata (Mexico), who will explain to us how to take steps against these structural evils in our society. She is the author of the practical guide ¡Quiero ser antirracista! and she has contributed to the anthologies Tsunami 2 and Hermanas del ñame.

Community workshop by La Otra Bandita

Ideas in Movement

Saturday 6 September 2025, 12pm –  Hércules

Ideas en Movimiento is a series of itinerant and community artistic workshops for children and teenagers from the peripheral areas of Queretaro. Games, cooperative dynamics and the Little Mobile School are the tools used to demonstrate how creativity can transform communities. The route will end at the Foro Cultural de Ideas, where participants will share their proposals, reminding us that ideas, once sown in community, flourish.

Juan Gabriel Vásquez in conversation with Elvira Liceaga

Saturday 6 September 2025, 12.30pm –  Teatro de la Ciudad

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.

Register to watch online

Eduardo Matos Moctezuma and Patricia Ledesma in conversation with Ayelén Oliva

Hay Festival Constellations: archaeology

Saturday 6 September 2025, 12.30pm –  Cineteca Rosalío Solano

Hay Festival Constellations creates a space for intergenerational dialogue within the Mexican cultural scene, in fields such as literature, film, music, science and activism. To understand the present, it is necessary to understand the past, and in this regard we owe to Eduardo Matos Moctezuma much of Mexico’s current identity. Together with Patricia Ledesma, this event examines that history in order to think about what has made us. The past and the present will come into dialogue here, in a conversation moderated by Ayelén Oliva.

Nacho Lozano in conversation with Nena Mounstro

Deconstruct your macho side

Saturday 6 September 2025, 12.30pm –  Jardín Guerrero

How can we stop being macho? The journalist Nacho Lozano has written Macho menos, aimed at those men who want to deconstruct themselves, in order to open the way to new masculinities. This is a book that also incorporates women’s voices in order to shed light on some of the more questionable aspects of men’s behaviour.

LSM Mexican sign language interpretation available

Olivia Rosenthal in conversation with Javier García del Moral

Saturday 6 September 2025, 12.30pm –  Museo de la Ciudad (espacio escénico)

Olivia Rosenthal (France) is a writer whose work fuses fiction, essay and personal testimony. For Que font les rennes après Noël?, which examines our relationship with animals and the domestication of emotional feeling, she interviewed several people who work with animals. In On n’est pas là pour disparaître, she reconstructs the case of a man suffering from Alzheimer’s who attacks his wife, and confronts us with the fragility of identity and personal links.

Simultaneous interpretation from French to Spanish available

With the support of the French Embassy in Mexico

Janet Martínez, Alan Riding and John Vaillant in conversation with Alejandra Claros

The United States of the Americas

Saturday 6 September 2025, 12.30pm –  Museo de la Ciudad (sala 2)

Mexico, the USA and Canada share more than borders: migratory policies, the climate emergency and common challenges. The relationships among the three countries have not always been stable, and according to who is in power, changes in course occur. Three experts will talk about the urgency of building bridges among the three nations: Alan Riding (United Kingdom), who has written about the complexity of these relationships; John Vaillant (USA/Canada), a witness to the ecological disaster; and the Mexican journalist Janet Martínez. They will be joined by Alejandra Claros Borda, General Secretary of the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF).

Consecutive interpretation from English to Spanish available

Sponsored by CAF

Workshop with Jemima Peláez

Biciteca Akari

Saturday 6 September 2025, 12.30pm –  Centro Cultural Gómez Morín

There is a mobile library on two wheels that has over two hundred stories and books, and which can become a space for sharing literature. With reading-matter for all ages, the Biciteca Akari promotes social inclusion, creativity and socio-emotional education through sharing stories. At this event with Jemima Pelaez we can see the Biciteca Akari for ourselves, exploring tales that help to boost identity, self-esteem and acceptance, aiming for each participant to take away a new view on harmony and inclusion.

Event with Adolfo Córdova and Mariela Sancari

Ana everywhere

Saturday 6 September 2025, 12.30pm –  La Alameda

An event for children about falling in love, and first loves, based on Ana en todas partes. The writer Adolfo Córdova and the artist Mariela Sancari will talk about this self-fiction novel that mingles the author’s own experiences with those of over a hundred children, revealed through interviews. A space for talking about love with children and teenagers.

Workshop with Elisa Guerra

A book without words

Saturday 6 September 2025, 4pm –  En el Semáforo se Aprende

Sometimes, there are feelings that overcome us in such a way that words escape our minds. The same thing can happen with books! Even when some of them are silent, they can make us tremble with the stories that they tell us. In this activity for children, educator Elisa Guerra explores different forms of expression that can have books as starting points.

Event with Rebeca Mendoza

Ernestina, the little witch

Saturday 6 September 2025, 4pm –  La Alameda

The Queretaro writer Rebeca Mendoza has created a very charming witch, who has gone down a storm among young readers. After the impressive success of Ernestina, una brujita miedosa,comes Ernestina, un sueño hecho realidad, in which our favourite witch becomes human to go to school and make new friends. Are you ready for a new magic adventure?

Carmen Aristegui in conversation with Daniel Pardo

Hay Festival Constellations: journalism

Saturday 6 September 2025, 5pm –  Teatro de la Ciudad

Hay Festival Constellations creates a space for intergenerational dialogue within the Mexican cultural scene, in fields such as literature, film, music, science and activism. Truth, ethics and the urge to tell us the facts are all a part of good journalism. Carmen Aristegui and an emergent journalist selected by her will dialogue about the current state and value of a profession that has gone from being seen as «the Fourth Estate», to being mistrusted and even vilified by certain discourses and some sectors of society.

LSM Mexican sign language interpretation available

Register to watch online

Michel Nieva in conversation with Eduardo Rabasa

Future hacking: science fiction and neoliberalism

Saturday 6 September 2025, 5pm –  Cineteca Rosalío Solano

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 Eduardo Rabasa.

Fernando Benavides in conversation with Paula Rosas

True crime, from podcast to novel

Saturday 6 September 2025, 5pm –  Jardín Guerrero

Mix a few drops of murder, disappearance, political investigation and unsettling theories, and stir in some vigorous narrative rhythm and a great sense of story, and you have all the ingredients that have made Fausto, the true-crime podcast by Fernando Benavides (Mexico), the most listened to in Latin America. On this occasion, he presents the novel La vulnerabilidad del azar, a work written in his characteristic style: based on a real case, with multiple murders, and the resulting police investigation.

LSM Mexican sign language interpretation available

John Vaillant in conversation with David Escobar

Saturday 6 September 2025, 5pm –  Museo de la Ciudad (espacio escénico)

John Vaillant (USA/Canada) won the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-fiction for Fire Weather, a book about the terrible forest fire that burned Fort McMurray, the centre of the Canadian oil industry. In this brilliant work, Vaillant argues that it was not just a fire, but a warning that we need to prepare for an ever hotter and more inflammable world.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

Mar García Puig and Mariana Matija in conversation with Felipe Rosete

Reconnections

Saturday 6 September 2025, 5pm –  Museo de la Ciudad (sala 2)

Mar García Puig (Spain) and Mariana Matija (Colombia) advocate for a reconnection with fundamental aspects of our existence, from different perspectives. In her book, Això tan tenebrós, García Puig presents an argument in favour of the complexity of metaphors and the darkness, as against the prevailing literalness and desire for purity; in her work of non-fiction Niñapájaroglaciar, Matija looks to a more aware and harmonious relationship with nature.

With the support of Instituto Ramón Llull

Gina Jaramillo and Patricia Vázquez del Mercado in conversation with Alejandra Claros

Universum: learn about science through play

Saturday 6 September 2025, 5pm –  Patio de la Delegación del Centro Histórico

The UNAM’s Museum of Science has created Universum, a space for children to learn about science through curiosity and play. Gina Jaramillo and Patricia Vázquez del Mercado will discuss the museum’s new proposal, a pioneer in Mexico due to its accessible and inclusive approach, and because of the cooperation between the public and private sectors involved. In conversation with Alejandra Claros Borda, General Secretary of CAF.

Sponsored by CAF

Elvira Sastre in conversation with Alberto Villarreal

Saturday 6 September 2025, 5.30pm –  Tequisquiapan, Plaza principal

Elvira Sastre has managed to achieve the improbable: bring poetry to thousands of young people. Using a familiar approach and subject matter that is relevant to their lives, she has connected with various generations of readers, keeping alive the spark of literary sensitivity.

With the support of Acción Cultural Española, AC/E

Andrés Cota Hiriart in conversation with José María Herrera Marquina

The axolotl, an emblematic creature

Saturday 6 September 2025, 6pm –  Pinal de Amoles, Kiosko Municipal

There is a real-life monster that lives underwater, able to regenerate its limbs and which is always young. This is the amphibian known as the axolotl, and it is… Mexican! In this fascinating conversation together with José María Herrera Marquina, the Mexican biologist and writer Andrés Cota Hiriart will tell us anecdotes, curiosities and surprising information about this small and mysterious animal that always seems to be smiling.

Nacho Lozano in conversation with Israel Nieves

Deconstruct your macho side

Saturday 6 September 2025, 6pm –  La Otra Bandita

How can we stop being macho? The journalist Nacho Lozano has written Macho menos, aimed at those men who want to deconstruct themselves, in order to open the way to new masculinities. A book that, while still about listening to women, talks about the behaviour of men. In conversation with Israel Nieves.