Hay Festival Cartagena 2026

We talk about what we love most: listening to stories. From the communal spaces for enjoying literature to collective spaces such as reading clubs; as well as archives for recovering shared histories, both physical and digital, and non-hegemonic narratives which act to nourish our languages. We offer space for this discussion with Mónica Acebedo (Colombia), the author of Letras compartidas. Una estrategia de lectura; and Chao Tayiana Maina (Kenya), founder and director of African Digital Heritage.

Interpretation from English to Spanish available

Otras historias del Archivo de Indias, edited by Erna von der Walde, is an anthology compiling texts by ten recognised Ibero-American authors, who have created short stories based on documents preserved in the Archivo General de Indias. This Hay Festival and CAF project aims to make public some of the archives’ huge store of documents, rescuing some of the many stories, from a great variety of voices, recorded there. Two of the writers participating in the initiative, the Colombians Cristina Bendek and Carlos Granés, will discuss the anthology with Cristina Fuentes La Roche, International Director of the Hay Festival. The book will be published in September 2026.

All events on Saturday, January 31st 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 Colombian Academy of the Language —the continent’s oldest— has taken over a century and a half to open its doors to racialized women. This systematic invisiblisation has started to be remedied this year with the recognition as members of the institution of the Afro-Colombian poet Mary Grueso and the Misak linguist Bárbara Muelas. Muelas is working on the first Namtrik-Spanish dictionary and Grueso has been showing for years that her poetry, in the Afro oral tradition, is also literature. The two will talk to Mar Ortega about the historical repercussions of these appointments.

All events on Saturday, January 31st 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.