Hay Festival Cartagena 2025

The magazine Cuadernos hispanoamericanos encourages knowledge and exchange between writers of different generations and nationalities, united by a single language and a literary tradition enriched by authors of different origins. This event features Melba Escobar (Colombia), a columnist and writer, author of books such as the non-fiction Cuando éramos felices pero no lo sabíamos, and the novel La casa de la belleza, and her recent Las huérfanas, a portrait of Myriam de Nogales, her mother. Melba Escobar talks to Gioconda Belli about this novel, which delves into her family past and deals with the questions of origins, the creation of a female identity, and the place of the dead, who never die in the minds of the living.

At its book clubs, Hay Festival Cartagena offers intimate encounters with a selection of festival guests. These are spaces to talk in greater depth about recent work by some of the festival’s participants. At this event, Juan Gómez-Jurado (Spain) will talk to Clara Elvira Ospina about his book Todo muere, the last part of his trilogy Todo arde from the narrative universe of the acclaimed Reina Roja series, and a long-awaited ending to one of the most read and loved contemporary sagas in the Spanish language.

Those attending must have read the book

We talk literature and journalism, and about the links between the two with Lyonel Trouillot (Haiti) a committed novelist, poet and intellectual, one of the most outstanding representatives of global French-language literature, as well as a journalist and lecturer in French and Creole literatures at the University of Port-au-Prince. His most recent book is Bicentenario. In conversation with Felipe Restrepo Pombo.

Simultaneous interpretation from French to Spanish

How can we travel towards literature from journalism? How do both fields coexist and feed each other? This workshop will explore the bond between journalism and literature through the format of journalistic books and will analyze the path towards telling true stories with literary tools, as Abraham Jiménez Enoa did in Aterrizar en el mundo, a travel writing book about the cities of the West where the author lived during his first year outside of Cuba, which won the Michael Jacobs Travel Writing Grant in 2023. In this book, the author tells the story of his arrival in Europe and the memories of his last years in Cuba, offering an intimate and critical view of Cuban reality.

Three authors talk to Leonard Benardo about their writing, talking about the particular perspective of their work with respect to current social questions. With Lena Khalaf Tuffaha (United States/Palestine) author of Kaan and her Sisters and Something About Living, winner of the US 2024 National Book Award, Viet Thanh Nguyen (United States), winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Sympathizer; and Javier Zamora (El Salvador / United States), author of Solito.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

Colm Tóibín (Ireland) is a novelist, journalist and educator, and is one of the most influential writers in contemporary literature. Throughout his career, he has received numerous awards, including the E. M. Forster Award in 1995 and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for The Master (2004). His most recent work, Long Island (2024), the highly-awaited sequel to Brooklyn (2009), explores the life of Eilis Lacey two decades after her move to Long Island, dealing with the impact of the past on the present. He will talk to Charlotte Higgins.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

At its book clubs, Hay Festival Cartagena offers intimate encounters with a selection of festival guests. These are spaces to talk in greater depth about recent work by some of the festival’s participants. At this event, Camila Sosa Villada (Argentina) will talk to Margarita Valencia about her book Tesis sobre una domesticación. The protagonist, a trans actress, finds she is trapped by marriage and social convention.

Those attending must have read the book