Hay Festival Cartagena 2025

If we wish to create most just societies, with an equality of opportunities and rights, it is important to analyse the structural racism that exists around us. We talk to five experts from five countries in the region about how to counter racism through education and change: with Mario Ellington (Guatemala), a Garifuna lawyer and former Vice-minister of Culture in Guatemala; Mónica Moreno Figueroa (Mexico), Professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge; Claudia Mosquera Rosero-Labbé (Colombia), academic and Colombian Ambassador in Senegal; Federico Pita (Argentina), activist and intellectual; and Roberto Zurbano (Cuba), a cultural critic and essayist; in conversation with Yoseth Ariza Araújo, Director of the Centre for Afrodiaspora Studies at the ICESI University.

Aurora Vergara will lead a conversation on the origins of racism, from the caste system in India to the recent history of the United States. With Ava DuVernay (United States), film director and creator of the film Origin, nominated for an Academy Award, it tells of the tragedy and triumph of the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Isabel Wilkerson, author of the book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. In her film, DuVernay relates racism in the United States to the caste system in India and the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany. Suraj Yengde (India) lawyer of International Human Rights, professor at Harvard University, and author of Caste Matters, he is also one of the most important young intellectuals in India; he will share his research on the caste system in his home country with us.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

Nikole Hannah-Jones (United States) is a journalist who specialises in racial justice, and who received the Pulitzer Prize for the 1619 Project, a collaborative effort that has also published a book and made a documentary film exploring the history of slavery in the United States. She will speak to Colombian academic Aurora Vergara about the 1619 Project and the new movements for historical reparation which are arising all over the Americas, working to recover the silenced histories of racialized groups who have been left out of official history.

Yomi Adegoke is a British writer and journalist, author of The List, winner of the Groucho Maverick and Marie Claire Future Shapers awards, and included on the Forbes 30 under 30 list. Johny Pitts (United Kingdom) is a television presenter, writer and photographer, as well as an editor at the electronic magazine Afropean.com, an essential guide for the Afro-European diaspora, and now a book: Afropean. Notes from Black Europe. In conversation with Mónica Moreno Figueroa.

Consecutive interpretation from English to Spanish available

The Afro-Latin American movements have been building regional and national links since the 1990s, rising up against racism. According to the 2017 Global Atlas on Violence, for every 100 people murdered in Brazil, 71 are black. Osmundo Pinho (Brazil) will talk to Flavia Rios about how to portray, and also to change, this reality through art. He offers, in his work, detailed ethnographic description, and analyses racist patterns and practices in his country, particularly in Salvador (Bahia).

Simultaneous interpretation from Portuguese to Spanish available

Two Afro-descendant writers, Yurieth Romero from Santa Marta and Gilbert Shang Ndi from Cameroon, will engage in a conversation with Paula Moreno Zapata, author of Soñar lo Imposible and El Poder de lo Invisible, about the essential integration of literature produced by Black people into contemporary literary canons. Yurieth Romero is the first Black writer from the Caribbean to publish a book, Las Visitantes, under the Alfaguara imprint of Penguin Random House. On the other hand, Gilbert Shang Ndi is a prominent author and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, recognized for his research on topics such as African dictatorship novels, the poetics of the body, violence in literature, visual culture, and cyber literature. In this conversation, both writers will share their work and personal perspectives, and discuss how the invisibility of Afro-descendant authors in Latin America contributes to one of the deepest roots of inequality in the region. Additionally, they will explore how the African continent has emerged in the past decade as a literary powerhouse in the global arena.

There are 134 million Afro-descendent people living in Latin America, but most of this population lives in a state of inequality. How can we change this scenario? Ana María Belique (Dominican Republic) is the co-founder and leader of Reconoci.do, a movement for empowering Afro-descendent Dominicans in their struggle for equality and nationality rights, and to be free of racial discrimination; she is also the author of the children’s book La muñeca de Dieula. Ochy Curiel (Dominican Republic), activist and Latin American and Caribbean feminist theorist, social anthropologist and singer-songwriter. She is a spokesperson for autonomous, lesbian, antiracists and decolonial feminism. Lyonel Trouillot, born in Port-au Prince, teaches Creole and French literature. As well as publishing the literary magazine Demembre, he also offers participants the chance to seek advice from experienced writers at his Ateliers du Jeudi Soir workshops. Author of La belle amour humaine, he won the 2012 Geneva Book Fair Literary Prize. In conversation with Yuderkys Espinosa (Dominican Republic), Afro-Caribbean philosopher and writer and decolonial feminist.

Consecutive interpretation from French to Spanish available

In the last decade, Latin America has shown itself to be a region that leads in terms of racial justice and the fight against racism, with a wave of collective actions. We talk about them and their territorial characteristics with Bocafloja (Mexico), an interdisciplinary artist and curator who, in his work, tackles themes such as critical race theory, the Global South, coloniality and the African diaspora in Latin America; Tanya Hernández (United States), a specialist in comparative racial relations and anti-discrimination law, and author of Inocencia racial: desenmascarando la antinegritud de los latinos y la lucha por la igualdad; and Maricruz Rivera Clemente, founder of Corporación Piñones se Integra COPI and co-founder of Corredor Afro in Piñones in northern Puerto Rico, and activist against the discrimination of the Afro-descendent population. In conversation with Agustín Laó-Montes.

The origin of racism against Afro-descendent people goes back to slavery, empire building and the capitalist development of the world. In conversation with Paula Moreno will be Susan Neiman, a US philosopher and writer, author of Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil; and Rinaldo Walcott (Barbados / Canada) is a writer, critic, researcher in the area of Black Diaspora Cultural Studies, gender and sexuality, and author of the book On Property: Policing, Prisons, and the Call for Abolition.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

Ana Belique is a sociologist and human rights activist. She is part of the Reconoci.Do group, which works against racial discrimination and in favour of the recognition of Afro identity in the Dominican Republic. At this event, Belique will talk with inhabitants of the Tierra Baja community about empowerment through self-recognition of Afro identity, building a bridge between the local experiences of Afro-descendent communities in the Dominican Republic and in Cartagena. In conversation with Laura Romero de la Rosa.

The novelist, poet and essayist, Mayra Santos Febres (Puerto Rico) is the author of Lecciones de renuncia and La otra Julia. Rinaldo Walcott (Barbados / Canada) is a writer, critic, researcher in the area of Black Diaspora Cultural Studies, gender and sexuality, and author of the book On Property: Policing, Prisons, and the Call for Abolition. Suraj Yengde is a noted Indian academic and intellectual, an associate researcher with the Department of African and African American Studies at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. They will talk to Agustín Laó-Montes, exploring the relationships among race, caste and class, from an intersectional perspective.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available