Hay Festival Cartagena 2026

The actor, director and producer Diego Luna has balanced the galaxies of Hollywood and the vibrant Mexico City like no one else in the business. His activism, which has been channelled in the field of social causes, as well as in projects such as the documentary film festival Ambulante, demonstrates his conviction that telling stories can also transform realities. His next film, Ceniza en la boca, an adaptation of the novel by Brenda Navarro, explores the fate of those who are still seeking their place in the world. He will talk to Andrés Mompotes, Editor of El Tiempo.

As well as being three of Latin America’s most renowned writers, Leila Guerriero Argentina), Leonardo Padura (Cuba) and Juan Gabriel Vásquez (Colombia) are all El País columnists. They will talk to Javier Moreno Barber, exdirector of the Spanish newspaper, about how they tackle writing, why it is so important for the reputation of a newspaper to have high profile columnists, and how they contribute to maintaining the narrative, cultural and social bridge between Latin America and Spain.

Fernando Arancón (Spain) is the Editor of El orden mundial, the most read Spanish-language outlet covering international affairs and analysis. Its goal is not just to say what is happening, but why, and it has just published the book Las fuerzas que mueven el mundo, an illustrated work that uses maps, graphs and accessible language to explain 21st-century geopolitics and global economics. He talks to Claudia Gurisatti..

With Morir en la arena Leonardo Padura returns with another masterful description of his native Cuba. He is the chronicler of a lost generation, one that has endured half a century of difficulties, and in his book Havana becomes another character, a witness to the passage of time and wasted promises. Rodolfo, marked by the patricide committed by his brother and reminders of the war in Angola, has recently retired, and intimacy with his sister-in-law, an old love, begins. With his brother, terminally ill, leaving prison and returning home, echoes of the past, long buried, haunt the present. Padura will talk about the book with the writer Juan Gabriel Vásquez (Colombia).

El hijo del hombre, by Juan Esteban Constaín, is a literary and historical essay in which the author examines early Christianity and its profound impact. This writer, whose very personal style is full of anecdotes, will talk to Pablo Arango, Philosophy lecturer at the University of Caldas, about this book on classical antiquity and how Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire.

When writers from the global South take their pens to the topic of the West, it rarely comes out looking good. On this topic, the essayist and novelist Pankaj Mishra (India) is one of the most lucid and incisive voices of our times. In Age of Anger he traces the links between contemporary violence and the rise of individualism and capitalism; while in The World After Gaza, he criticises the global racial order imposed by the West.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

Here, by Richard McGuire (USA), is one of the most iconic works in the contemporary graphic novel, thanks to the originality of its narrative scheme. It tells the story of the corner of a room, and things that have happened and will happen in that space, from prehistoric times to a far future. The novel proceeds without a chronological order, and many panels contain insets with scenes from different years. Its French translation won an award at the Angouleme Comic Festival in 2016, and in 2024 it was made into a film, starring Tom Hanks, by Robert Zemeckis.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

Los tres mundos. La conquista de las Galias por Julio César is the highly awaited continuation of the series dedicated to Julius Caesar by Santiago Posteguillo (Spain). After the great success of the last two books in the saga, Roma soy yo and Maldita Roma, which told the story of the origins and rise of the great dictator, we now read about the conquest of a territory that is hostile to Roman interests. This historical novel also visits Egypt, and covers the exile of the Pharaoh Ptolemy XII, the father of Cleopatra. Rome, Gaul and Egypt, three worlds in which Posteguillo brings an end to his Julius Caesar cycle.

After listening to Karen Hao (USA), our view of artificial intelligence will never be the same. AI has come to stay, and nobody doubts that it can make certain tasks easier. Even this text could be generated by ChatGPT and few would notice. But nothing ever comes for free. First, because of the huge quantities of energy that this process consumes; and second, because the dark side of AI’s creators and the technological race is being revealed by researchers such as Hao, author of Empire of AI. In it, she examines the companies that act like empires, the exploitation of resources, the underpaid workers from the global South who compile and filter data... In conversation with José Carlos Cueto.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

Part I

María Corina Machado in conversation with Michael Stott

María Corina Machado (Venezuela) won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. Since becoming a member of parliament in 2010, Machado has become the main figure in opposition to Nicolás Maduro, and she is currently the leader of the Venezuelan democratic movement. This conversation will last 20 minutes, followed by 20 minutes of questions from the audience.

María Corina Machado will participate virtually

Part II

Debate: Venezuela Today and Possible Senarios

A 40 minute debate will take place on the current situation of Venezuela and the region and it's possible future scenarios, with the participation of: Javier Lafuente (Spain), director of the Américas for El País; Daniel Lozano (España), ccorrespondent for El Mundo en las Américas; Luz Mely Reyes (Venezuela), journalist, writer, analyst and the director and cofounder of the digital media outlet Efecto Cocuyo. Moderated by Michael Stott (United Kingdom), editor for Latin America for The Financial Times.

The publication of El loco de Dios en el fin del mundo coincided with the death of Pope Francis. Before this, Javier Cercas (Spain) —an atheist, anti-clerical and militant secularist— travelled to Mongolia with him: “a madman without God following God’s fool to the end of the world”. With unprecedented access, he has written a novel without the fiction, a spiritual thriller. This is Cercas at his most personal, one that resonates with successes such as The Impostor and The Anatomy of a Moment.

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.

After the ceasifre agreement between Israel and Hamas, a new era has opened up for the people of Gaza: to build a peace amidst the rubble of war and barbarism, all in a context of the most powerful uncertainty. What the future will bring will be the subject of a discussion among journalist Catalina Gómez Ángel and Janne Teller, whose most recent novel, Justicia, is set against the backdrop of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. With the moderator José Manuel Acevedo.

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.

All that glitters in the world of artificial intelligence is not gold. The friendly side of the tools that in principle make our lives easier have an unknown dark side, as explained by Karen Hao ((USA), Chao Tayiana (Kenya) and Carissa Véliz (UK). It is not a matter of sounding the alarm, more a matter of bringing to light what we do not know about these new technologies: a massive and unprecedented consumption of energy resources, exploited workers in the global South, algorithmic manipulation, loss of privacy when we give over our data, and other problems that we, as users, are rarely aware of. They talk to Luhan Gabel.

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.

Daniel Samper Pizano and Enrique Santos are two of the sharpest commentators and analysts of Colombian current affairs. Whether via the digital platform Los Danieles, columns, analysis or memoires, they have spent over four decades closely following the national political panorama — sometimes at first hand. Sometimes offering shared perspectives, at other times their views have been opposing. They are in the process of finishing a book that tells the story of both voices. With the provisional title of Memorias charladas, it will gather their journalistic memories, full of humor, anecdotes and reflections around the practice of the profession in Colombia. Accompanied on stage by María Jimena Duzán.

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.

How did one of the greatest film directors of his time come to be working for Joseph Goebbels? G. W. Pabst fled the rise of Nazism, taking refuge in Hollywood, where he was a failure. His mother’s illness brought him back to his native Austria, now under the yoke of the Third Reich, where the Nazis attempted to entice him into their propaganda apparatus. After captivating us with novels such as F and Tyll —shortlisted for the Booker Prize—, Daniel Kehlmann (Germany) tells the story of this director, who faced the moral and artistic dilemma of collaborating with the Nazi regime in exchange for saving himself and being able to continue making films. He talks to Philippe Sands.

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.

Between fiction and non-fiction there is a fertile land where memory, truth and history mingle. Javier Cercas (Spain) and Leila Guerriero (Argentina) have made this space their field of exploration with novels that are living testimonies and chronicles bursting with narrative. In conversation with Mábel Lara (Colombia), they will talk about these three themes, constants in their work, and about how to pick which path when it comes to telling stories.

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.

Table for Two, by Amor Towles (USA), includes six tales that take place around the year 2000, as well as a novella set during the Golden Age of Hollywood. There is apparently no connection among the stories, but they deal with universal themes, including the search for happiness, the power of money, and the subversion of social conventions. The author of the memorable A Gentleman in Moscow once again creates fascinating characters who talk about relationships, family, trust, ambition, guilt and the value of friendship. He talks to Santiago Ángel.

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.

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.

With plays such as Art and God of Carnage, which have played in over 30 countries, Yasmina Reza (France) has created a position for herself as one of the most respected and interesting of contemporary playwrights. She is also an actor (Lejos, Hasta mañana…), filmmaker (Chicas), novelist (Babylone, Serge…) and screenwriter (Jusqu’à la nuit, la noche, Le pique-nique de Lulu Kreutz). In her latest book, Récits de certains faits, she brings together personal memories and trial reports in order to investigate moral fragility and everyday imperfection. A biting, psychological observation of the human, using concise and incisive texts.

Simultaneous interpretation from French 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.

We pass on data every time we browse the Internet and use the social media, without concern for the value our privacy has. We feel we are making our everyday lives easier, but we are not aware of the power we are giving to private companies. Carissa Véliz is the author of Privacy is Power: Why and How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data and The Ethics of Privacy and Surveillance in which she talks of the practical and philosophical risks of losing our privacy in such a digital society. She will talk to the Fundación Gabo Projects Director Daniel Marquínez.

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.