Hay Festival Medellín 2026

Andrés Cota Hiriart is a Mexican biologist, zoologist and writer who has written books including Faunologías, El ajolote. Biología del anfibio más sobresaliente del mundo, Fieras familiares and Fieras interiores, and has come close to all kinds of animals in their natural habitats, travelling to some amazing places around the world, like the Galapagos, Borneo, Sulawesi and the island of Guadalupe. At this event, at which he will share images and excerpts from his books, he will focus on Fieras interiores. Moderated by Nelson Pérez.

Gustavo Rodríguez (Peru), winner of the 2023 Alfaguara Novel Prize, pays homage to his mother and grandparents in Mamita, about family ties that reach back to the Amazon region in the 20^th century, and about the cultural and social tensions of that time. This is a “postponed family duty” that has become one of the writer’s most personal and reflective novels. Moderated by Daniela Agudelo.

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. He will talk to Pilar Gutiérrez.

Justicia is Janne Teller’s first novel in eleven years. She is known around the world for works such as Nothing, and the Danish writer has needed two decades to complete this book, whose origins lie in a time when she worked as a UN diplomat. In this tale, Teodor Merlín, who has always believed in words and the power of the law when it comes to resolving conflicts, sees his life fall to pieces after the unresolved killing of his daughter Joanna in the Middle East. She will talk to Yesica Prado about the heart of the book: the human condition in the face of loss, and justice.

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 his origins and rise, 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. He will talk toSantiago Silva, Medellin’s Secretary of Citizen Culture.