Hay Festival Cartagena 2026

About a quarter of a century ago, Zygmunt Bauman defined our time as one of “liquidity”. Since then, our structures have only continued to change, with a geopolitical spectrum that is more volatile than ever: the rise of autocratic politics, the invasion of Ukraine, the future of Gaza after the ceasefire, the US incursions in Colombian and Venezuelan waters… Talking about all this will be Fernando Arancón, Director of the digital media outlet El orden mundial; Marcela Meléndez, a World Bank economist; and Carlos Alberto Patiño, author of La Guerra Global Invisible. Ucrania, el mundo y el retorno de los imperios, together with journalist María Martín.

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.

Annie Jacobsen (USA) was a Pulitzer Prize finalist with The Pentagon’s Brain, which was a detailed look into the US military and intelligence apparatus, a field that she has also dealt with in Area 51 and Operation Paperclip. Her latest book, Nuclear War: a Scenario, describes —using realistic events, actions and protocols— how exactly the nuclear war that would bring about the end of humanity might unfold. She will be in conversation with Michael Stott, Latin American editor of the Financial Times.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

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 writer and political analyst León Valencia has created a work of fiction about friendship and love in La vida infausta del negro Apolinar. In this conversation, he will talk to Mábel Lara about a novel that tells the story of the protagonist’s last adventure. In it, Apolinar Mosquera, aged and infirm, asks an old friend to keep a promise: that he tell his story. So begins an exchange of letters that open up memories and revisit a shared pain whose wound was never healed.

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.

With El rugido de nuestro tiempo, the Colombian essayist Carlos Granés continues his work of understanding and analysing the present that he began in Salvajes de una nueva época. We live at a time of ideological and geopolitical disorder, in which we live surrounded by decolonial debates as well as pan-Hispanic nostalgias; this is a time of incendiary speeches and artists who sacrifice transgression in favour of the latest moral requirements. To understand all this roaring, there is nothing better than turning to Granés, who is also part of the “Otras historias del Archivo de Indias” project run by the Hay Festival and CAF, commemorating the 500th anniversary of the founding of the Spanish city of Santa Marta.

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.

Journalist and former editor-in-chief of El País, Javier Moreno has published ¿Quién manda aquí? La impotencia ante la espiral de violencia en América Latina, a major analysis of the tentacles of state and criminal power in Latin America and of the reach of criminal governance that is now taking hold across the region. Taking part will Moreno, alongside Ana María Salazar, former Assistant Secretary of Defense during President Bill Clinton’s administration and now a security analyst and commentator in Mexico; Érika Rodríguez Pinzón, university professor, security expert, and Director of the Carolina Foundation in Spain; and Almudena Bernabéu, International lawyer with a long career in the fields of transitional justice, international criminal law and human rights, and Executive Director of the Guernica 37 Centre. The conversation will be moderated by Fernando Carrillo, former Minister of Justice and former Attorney General of Colombia, now Vice President of PRISA Group.

All events on Sunday, February 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, February 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.