Hay Festival Cartagena 2026

Culture should be accessible to all and local art deserves a higher profile. This is the thinking behind the work of Colartis, the Corporación Pulso Creativo, which offers artistic education to young people who have limited access to cultural spaces. Those participating in this workshop will create a collective mural as a permanent symbol of the experience. It will be a collaborative project, integrating what has been learned in the last three workshops, and will leave a mural as the outcome of the process. Workshop lead by Marión Ve.

A workshop designed to explore and discover the richness and diversity of one’s surroundings—a unique place in the world once we begin to uncover it and document its landscapes and its people. First, by venturing into the terrain and taking photographs; later, by creating stories inspired by the captured images. A space that encourages creativity, reflection, and a deeper connection with the environment and its community.

The links between two of the most terrible dictatorships of the 20th century are to be found in 38 Londres Street, by Philippe Sands (UK). The Nazi criminal Walter Rauff ended up in Punta Arenas, in Chilean Patagonia, collaborating with the Pinochet regime. Sands, who worked as a lawyer in the former dictator’s trial, reconstructs the relationship between Rauff and Pinochet, a story of justice and impunity told using documents, archives and testimonies.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

All events on Sunday, January 1st will be free for people with ID from the department of Bolívar. Complimentary tickets can be requested —up to capacity— at the box office of the Hay Festival (Centro de Convenciones) showing your identification on the same day the event is taking place.

In Los nuevos, by Pedro Mairal (Argentina), and Los espantos de mamá, by Gilmer Mesa (Colombia), youth experiences vertigo whilst peering over the precipice at the adult life. In Buenos Aires and the Aranjuez neighbourhood of Medellin, the protagonists carry the burden of loss and try to put their lives on track. Mairal tells of the transition from adolescence to adulthood, balancing gravity and lightness in the narrative; Mesa, the weight of a memory that is also injured. Both write about the same impulse: they seek to offer meaning in the middle of distress.

All events on Sunday, January 1st will be free for people with ID from the department of Bolívar. Complimentary tickets can be requested —up to capacity— at the box office of the Hay Festival (Centro de Convenciones) showing your identification on the same day the event is taking place.

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This is the response by Omar El Akkad (Egypt/Canada) to the moral hypocrisy of the West in relation to the genocide in Gaza, winner of the Non Fiction National Book Award 2025. Halfway between a political essay and personal memoir, he denounces the inaction of governments who are complicit in the massacre, as well as the emotional distance of our democracies. A book that confronts the ethical vacuum of our time, a cry against ignoring the systemic violence suffered by the people of Gaza. In conversation with Nesrine Malik.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

All events on Sunday, January 1st will be free for people with ID from the department of Bolívar. Complimentary tickets can be requested —up to capacity— at the box office of the Hay Festival (Centro de Convenciones) showing your identification on the same day the event is taking place.

A conversation about the memory, identity and representation of a region absent from Colombia’s founding narratives: the Caribbean. In “Nosotros, 172 años después”, Ruby Rumié offered a digital intervention to the Comisión Corográfica (1850-1859), replacing the original figures with 100 inhabitants of the Caribbean of today, each of them crowned by their favourite food. The artist, together with the anthropologist Weildler Guerra and the chef Álex Quessep, explores how art and food reveal identities, question stigmas and create spaces for memory and collective pride. Images of the project accompany the dialogue, showing how photography, archive and words can link up to offer new views of the Caribbean.

All events on Sunday, January 1st will be free for people with ID from the department of Bolívar. Complimentary tickets can be requested —up to capacity— at the box office of the Hay Festival (Centro de Convenciones) showing your identification on the same day the event is taking place.

Héctor Abad Faciolince and Catalina Gómez Ángel were together in a pizzeria in Kramatorsk —in the disputed region of Donetsk— when the building was hit by a Russian air attack. Both survived unhurt, but the journalist and writer Victoria Amelina, their guide and travel companion, died a victim of the Russian missiles. Ahora y en la hora is the story by Abad Faciolince of these events, his testimony to tragedy; a narrative about life, aging, death, war, violence and guilt.

All events on Sunday, January 1st will be free for people with ID from the department of Bolívar. Complimentary tickets can be requested —up to capacity— at the box office of the Hay Festival (Centro de Convenciones) showing your identification on the same day the event is taking place.

From the moment Santa Fe lifted their arms to celebrate becoming the first national champions, to the Nacional of Armani, Henríquez and Macnelly; and without forgetting the Millonarios of the 50s, Bilardo’s Cali, Maturana’s Nacional… up to 50 teams. Los 50 mejores equipos de la historia del fútbol profesional colombiano, by Mauricio Silva Guzmán, is a must for anyone who loves the beautiful game; with the in-depth research of Felipe Valderrama, full of unknown facts and a careful selection of images. Silva will talk about these historical teams with another football fanatic, Daniel Samper Pizano, and with the moderation of journalist Andrea Guerrero.

All events on Sunday, January 1st will be free for people with ID from the department of Bolívar. Complimentary tickets can be requested —up to capacity— at the box office of the Hay Festival (Centro de Convenciones) showing your identification on the same day the event is taking place.

Juan Gabriel Vásquez, one of the most celebrated writers of his generation, has been writing opinion articles for different outlets for almost 20 years and for five of those he has been a regular contributor to Spain’s El País. He now presents a selection of the best articles he has published there. Esto ha sucedido is the work of an intellectual committed to the political reality around us, but also of an observer concerned about the transformation of the world after the pandemic. A manual to guide us through the complexities of our times. In conversation with Javier Moreno.

All events on Sunday, January 1st will be free for people with ID from the department of Bolívar. Complimentary tickets can be requested —up to capacity— at the box office of the Hay Festival (Centro de Convenciones) showing your identification on the same day the event is taking place.

Brigitte Baptiste invites us to think in an alternative way: from the viewpoint of queer ecology. From watching what we consume, how we inhabit the planet, and the demographic future that awaits; as well as thinking about the digital revolution and an energy transition that is becoming more and more urgent, we will be prepared for a new cycle of transformations on Earth. The Colombian biologist and ecologist brings together seven essays that act as a guide, offering readers tools to work on these changes, in Transecología. Una guía patafísica para habitar las transformaciones del mundo. In conversation with Mar Ortega.

All events on Sunday, January 1st will be free for people with ID from the department of Bolívar. Complimentary tickets can be requested —up to capacity— at the box office of the Hay Festival (Centro de Convenciones) showing your identification on the same day the event is taking place.

Aged just 13, Cecilia Baena became the world speed skating champion. At the competition, held in Barrancabermeja, she won four world titles and broke the world record. So began the history of success of Chechi Baena, who, a year later, was awarded the title of Colombian Sportswoman of the Year. After her early start, she continued to win at championships around the world, and at competitions in Colombia and abroad, gaining both indoor and outdoor titles and becoming a role model for girls and boys who have decided to make skating their sport of choice. In conversation with Andrea Guerrero.

All events on Sunday, January 1st will be free for people with ID from the department of Bolívar. Complimentary tickets can be requested —up to capacity— at the box office of the Hay Festival (Centro de Convenciones) showing your identification on the same day the event is taking place.

How much does peace cost in a country that has paid so much for war? After decades of pain, now is the moment to invest —economically, socially and morally— in building a sustainable and lasting peace. Francisco de Roux, former Chair of the Truth Commission, reflects on the ethical legacy of reconciliation; Julieta Lemaitre, JEP magistrate, analyses the challenges of transitional law; Bruce Mac Master, President of the ANDI, calls on the business community to join the peace process; and Marcela Meléndez analyses the social breaches that have resulted from the conflict, and which have not yet healed.

All events on Sunday, January 1st will be free for people with ID from the department of Bolívar. Complimentary tickets can be requested —up to capacity— at the box office of the Hay Festival (Centro de Convenciones) showing your identification on the same day the event is taking place.

The Biblioteca de Escritoras Colombianas is an ambitious project run by the Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia and the Ministry of Cultures, Arts and Knowledges, which seeks to build a more equal and plural canon. With editorial management by Pilar Quintana, the library presented its second edition in early 2025, with ten anthologies of different genres, including 97 women authors. One of them, the writer Laura Restrepo, will talk about this collective initiative of literary memory with Adriana Martínez.

All events on Sunday, January 1st will be free for people with ID from the department of Bolívar. Complimentary tickets can be requested —up to capacity— at the box office of the Hay Festival (Centro de Convenciones) showing your identification on the same day the event is taking place.

The actor, director, cultural manager and the writer of his native land, the Cartagenan Jhon Narváez has extended his voice in various formats. In film, in the role of Moisés in Pájaros de verano or playing Joe Arroyo in Rebelión, a performance that won him the 2023 Macondo Prize, right after overcoming a stroke. He is also a promoter of local and community projects, including Conéctate Caribe, creating the superhero Capitán Cartagena and running the artistic project Pedro Romero Vive Aquí. From the Caribbean to the world, he has kept his roots and local identity. He talks to Frank Baez.

All events on Sunday, January 1st will be free for people with ID from the department of Bolívar. Complimentary tickets can be requested —up to capacity— at the box office of the Hay Festival (Centro de Convenciones) showing your identification on the same day the event is taking place.

Carry Somers (UK) has been one of the standard-bearers of ethical fashion since she co-founded Fashion Revolution, and asked a question that changed the industry and raised awareness among thousands of people: “Who made your clothes?”. She has recently published The Nature of Fashion, an epic sweep through the history of clothes, from learning to create garments from plants, to the changes that textiles have made to our world and the natural landscape. This writer received the honour of being invited by the Kogui people of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta to investigate their traditions and clothing. She talks to Rossy Lemos.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

All events on Sunday, January 1st will be free for people with ID from the department of Bolívar. Complimentary tickets can be requested —up to capacity— at the box office of the Hay Festival (Centro de Convenciones) showing your identification on the same day the event is taking place.

Thanks to the work of their guardians, the river Atrato (Colombia) and lake Titicaca (Bolivia-Perú) are two of the very few that are registered as the subjects of rights, a tool that grants considerable power to to the Colombian Mayury Mosquera and the Peruvian Soraya Poma when it comes to defending their natural habitats and their tributaries. This, in turn, strengthens their communities and furthers work on development and environmental responsibility plans. For Mosquera and Poma, their rivers and lakes are everything, and so their lives and their work are fully aimed at giving back what they have received from the Atrato and the Titicaca. In conversation with Andrés Bermúdez Liévano.

All events on Sunday, January 1st will be free for people with ID from the department of Bolívar. Complimentary tickets can be requested —up to capacity— at the box office of the Hay Festival (Centro de Convenciones) showing your identification on the same day the event is taking place.

Homage to the porro, one of the major musical styles of the Colombian Caribbean. This event will combine a concert and a conversation. We will hear, live, the sincejelana group Acorbanda de Colombia, led by the accordionist and composer Rodrigo Rodríguez; this band is made up of 12 musicians and a guest guitarist. Maestro Rafael Pérez Alviz, a researcher into Caribbean music, and Daniel Samper Pizano will take part in a conversation about the history and cultural wealth of porro.

PULEP Code: AYC168

All events on Sunday, January 1st will be free for people with ID from the department of Bolívar. Complimentary tickets can be requested —up to capacity— at the box office of the Hay Festival (Centro de Convenciones) showing your identification on the same day the event is taking place.

Nueve innings. La cultura del béisbol en el Caribe colombiano, by Felipe Merlano de la Ossa and Bertha Lucía Arnedo Redondo —the pens behind Memorias de béisbol en Cartagena de Indias & Bolívar—, is a look at the effects of baseball on the history, culture economy and society of the Caribbean coast of Colombia. In nine chapters, emulating the nine innings of baseball, they use the lenses of academic study and sociology to look at the game’s relationship with the people, from the influence on forms of speech in the coastal region to the arrival of US music, and the social mobility of baseball players.

All events on Sunday, January 1st will be free for people with ID from the department of Bolívar. Complimentary tickets can be requested —up to capacity— at the box office of the Hay Festival (Centro de Convenciones) showing your identification on the same day the event is taking place.

Vacuums, fragmentation and people seeking to recover their place in the world; two authors present their most recent books, in conversation with Giuseppe Caputo. Laura C. Vela (Spain) is the author of the publishing phenomenon Seisimil, a short, emphatic book in which a woman character takes a deep dive into her own history, in a fragmentary way; Elvira Liceaga (Mexico) has published the novel Las vigilantes, in which three Mexico City women deal with loss.

All events on Sunday, January 1st will be free for people with ID from the department of Bolívar. Complimentary tickets can be requested —up to capacity— at the box office of the Hay Festival (Centro de Convenciones) showing your identification on the same day the event is taking place.

There is a Caribbean beyond the postcards, beyond the beautiful beaches bathed in sun. This is a region with a colonial history, whose exiles speak, just as those who have remained do. It is a region that is open to new arrivals, but private behind closed doors. Bajo otras luces is the Caribbean as seen by the Dominican Frank Báez: an essay about what it means to write there, and how it is seen from far off. The personal view of an essayist, a poet and a Caribbean.