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Event 5
Autobiography Workshop with Beltrán Gambier and Gervasio Posadas
Life in a Few Words
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Centro Penitenciario de Segovia
The Minimal Autobiographies Workshop led by Beltrán Gambier at the Segovia Correctional Facility is a Hay Festival Segovia staple, renewed each year. Gambier was the founder and editor of the magazine Intramuros, which specializes in the genre. Now in its third decade, the publication boasts a roster of prestigious contributors, including Nobel Prize in Literature laureates such as Günter Grass, Herta Müller, and Mo Yan. Gambier is also a lawyer and the author of several legal texts, including one dedicated to prison administrative law. The workshop will feature Gervasio Posadas, a writer, educator, and cultural manager who has directed El Corte Inglés’ Ámbito Cultural since 2018. He is the author of several novels, including Hitler’s Mentalist and ¡The Failure of My Success.
A great opportunity for inmates to participate in a high-level literary activity, in which they will be asked to write an autobiographical excerpt.
Event in Spanish
Event for inmates at the correctional facility
Co-organized with the Segovia Correctional Facility
Nelio Biedermann and Antonia Blau in conversation with Irene Hernández Velasco
A Turbulent Past
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IE University. Refectorio
At 22 years old, Nelio Biedermann is able to weave together his aristocratic family past and his middle-class present with astonishing sincerity to tell the truth and veil the most disturbing episodes. A time he has revisited, one in which majestic palaces, the beauty of works of art, and the death and destruction that accompanied the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire—leaving deep scars on his family—are intertwined. Biedermann, a Swiss national, has poured all these experiences into a book that has taken Germany by storm under the title Lázár. Critics have highlighted its mystical tone and a classical prose style unexpected in such a young author, to the point that some are already placing him in the tradition of Thomas Mann. In conversation with philologist and cultural expert Antonia Blau. Moderated by the journalist Irene Hernández Velasco.
Following the event, the author will sign copies of his book
Event in German, with simultaneous interpretation into Spanish and English
Price: €9.00 (EUR)
Co-organized with the Goethe-Institut Madrid and Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial
Jessica Andrews in conversation with Cristina Ward
Writing in the midst of the world
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IE University. Aula Magna
Acclaimed novelist Jessica Andrews joins Cristina Ward, Head of Arts at British Council Spain, for an in-depth discussion of her work, exploring the powerful themes that run through her writing. Andrews’ debut Saltwater, winner of the Portico Prize, and her second novel Milk Teeth, shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Encore Award, both examine the intersections of identity, social class, gender and the body with striking sensitivity and precision.
In this wide-ranging conversation, Andrews will reflect on how these cross-cutting concerns shape her fiction, as well as tracing her journey to becoming a writer. From early influences to her emergence as one of the most distinctive voices of her generation, the discussion will offer insight into her creative process and the evolving concerns of her work.
After the event, the author will be signing copies of her books
Vicente Alcañiz, Mar Domínguez and Javier Sierra in conversation with Carme Riera
CEDRO event: Reading attention, a shared challenge
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IE University. Refectorio
Javier Sierra, writer and journalist; Vicente Alcañiz, Education Inspector at the Regional Ministry of Education of the Community of Madrid; and Mar Domínguez, director of the Colpisa news agency will reflect on the challenges reading face. In conversation with Carme Riera, writer, deputy director of the RAE and president of CEDRO, they will address how reading habits have changed, the impact of social media and new sources of information. In addition, there will be a discussion on the benefits of reading and the importance of education as a key tool for promoting respect for copyright and combating piracy through awareness-raising. And how reading makes us reflect on beauty and pain, emotion, knowledge and worlds that are sometimes inaccessible were it not for books.
At the end of the event, the authors will be signing copies of their books
Hwang Bo-Reum in conversation with Catalina Tejero
Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop
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IE University. Refectorio
What happens when we step away from the life we are expected to live and begin searching for the life we truly want? This is the question at the heart of Hwang Bo-Reum’s internationally acclaimed novel Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop, a publishing phenomenon that has captivated readers around the world with its warmth, wisdom and quiet humanity.
In conversation with Catalina Tejero, Dean of IE School of Arts & Humanities, Hwang reflects on the themes that have made her work resonate across cultures: burnout, loneliness, friendship, community, and the healing power of books. Set in a small bookshop in a Seoul neighbourhood, her novel follows people who have lost their way and discover new possibilities through literature, conversation and human connection.
The event will be presented by Javier Gila, president of the AIDA Foundation, an organisation which, amongst other projects, collects and sells second-hand books to raise funds for charitable initiatives.
At the end of the event, the author will be signing copies of her book
Event in Korean with simultaneous interpretation into Spanish and English
Price: €9.00 (EUR)
Co-organised with the IE Foundation, in partnership with Grupo Planeta and the AIDA Foundation
José Miguel Ortega in conversation with Héctor Rodríguez
History and its Emotions
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Biblioteca Municipal Casa de la Lectura
Few national and international authors like José Miguel Ortega del Río can boast of seeing their name featured in newspapers such as The Guardian, Le Figaro, The Telegraph, or the New York Post, and on television networks such as ABC News, O Globo, or Fox, in addition to Spanish media outlets like El País, ABC, or La Razón. The publication of Los Reyes del Grial ('The Kings of the Grail'), a book he co-authored with medievalist Margarita Torres Sevilla, made headlines around the world. The Holy Grail and its vicissitudes, a central theme in that work, return in his recent novel Calix Domini: La conjura del Grial. Together with journalist Héctor Rodríguez, they will engage in a conversation about history and fiction, in which the reader gains insight into the emotions, customs, and ways of life of people from a specific era. Thus, the historical novel becomes a bridge between historical knowledge and literary creativity.
At the end of the event, the author will sign copies of his book
Event in Spanish
Price: €9.00 (EUR)
In collaboration with CAF (Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean) and the Segovia City Council
Eva Mayro, C. A. Todorova and Alba Zamora in conversation
How to Create a Heroine Today
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IE University. Aula Magna
Alba Zamora, C.A. Todorova, and Eva Mayro, essential authors followed by tens of thousands of readers, discuss the rise of romantic fantasy, gothic romance and imaginary worlds as new territories of emotional education, where one flees from the superficial and seeks the beauty of the delicate. A discussion on heroines, wounds, desire, reading communities and the contemporary need to invent one’s own myths.
At the end of the event, the authors will be signing copies of their books
Event in Spanish
Price: €9.00 (EUR)
Co-organised with Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial
Javier Cercas in conversation with Margaryta Yakovenko
50 Years of El País, the newspaper of democracy
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Teatro Juan Bravo
In the book The Newspaper of Democracy, Javier Cercas offers a personal view on the fifty years of El País and, at the same time, on the construction of democratic Spain. Far from being an institutional chronicle, the writer traces the story of a reader who has followed the newspaper since its origins and who is also part of it as a contributor to El País Semanal magazine.
On the occasion of the newspaper’s 50th anniversary, Cercas revisits a collective adventure marked by the defense of freedoms, the vocation for independence, and the conviction that journalism remains an essential tool for understanding reality. The author will talk with El País journalist Margaryta Yakovenko, who is also the author of the novels Desencajada and Ocupación. The meeting will be an opportunity to explore not only the history of a newspaper that shaped Spanish public life, but also to reflect on how the story of a democracy is built and what the role of journalism is today.
At the end of the event, the author will be signing copies of his books
Event in Spanish
Price: €9.00 (EUR)
Co-organised with Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial
Martín Caparrós in conversation with Jacobo García
Buenos Aires is well worth a tango (or a novel)
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Biblioteca Pública de Segovia
Buenos Aires is one of those cities straight out of a novel. It hides stories set to the rhythm of the tango on every corner, where any resident will tell you a tale worthy of Borges and where people pray to gods who dribble a football. A city of heroes and villains, where all manner of passions fill the air in streets scented with mate. It is therefore no surprise that the Argentine chronicler, journalist and writer Martín Caparrós has set his most recent works of fiction in the capital of Buenos Aires. BUE is an ode to the diversity of the city and those who have shaped it. Through dozens of characters, situations and settings, he weaves the history of the last century of this beautiful metropolis, inviting us to explore it with delight. He has also begun a series of six crime novels set in 1930s Buenos Aires, starring Pibe Rivarola, a hustler and accidental journalist who attempts to unravel mysteries and murders. The first three volumes have already been published: Todo por la patria, Horror de Buenos Aires and Los suicidios de Gardel.
Caparrós will discuss his work and the city of his life with the journalist Jacobo García.
At the end of the event, the author will be signing copies of his books
Event in Spanish
Free admission subject to availability
In collaboration with CAF (Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean)
Diego del Alcázar in conversation with Carlos Franganillo
Tension in the Face of Modernity
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IE University. Aula Magna
What happens when a society obsessed with progress loses touch with its roots? Carlos Franganillo, one of the most prestigious journalists on the Spanish television news scene, and Diego del Alcázar, President of IE, will discuss this topic in relation to his latest novel, La idea de volver. Set against the backdrop of the tranquil Cantabrian mountains and the hustle and bustle of life in New York, the novel follows the story of an academic returning to the place of his childhood and an elderly man trying to come to terms with the passage of time. The work reflects on roots, identity and the limits of knowledge in the age of artificial intelligence.
At the end of the event, the author will sign copies of his book
Event in Spanish with simultaneous interpretation into English
Price: €9.00 (EUR)
Co-organised with the IE Foundation and in collaboration with Ediciones Siruela
Martín Caparrós, Carlos Flores y Erna von der Walde in conversation with Cristina Fuentes La Roche
Other Stories from the Archivo de Indias
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Biblioteca Pública de Segovia
Other Stories from the Archivo de Indias is an anthology bringing together texts by ten renowned Latin American authors, who have crafted fictional narratives based on documents preserved in the Archivo General de Indias. This project by the Hay Festival and CAF aims to bring the archive’s vast collection of documents to the general public, bringing to light some of the many stories recorded there, through a diversity of voices. Argentine writer Martín Caparrós, the director of the General Archive of the Indies, Carlos Flores, and the anthology’s editor, Erna von der Walde, will discuss their texts and project with Cristina Fuentes La Roche.
At the end of the event, the authors will be signing copies of their books
Event in Spanish
Free admission subject to availability
In partnership with Editorial Anagrama and CAF (Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean)
Can a book change a writer’s life? Having sold 200,000 copies and with editions due to be published in 18 countries, Comerás flores has marked a turning point in the life of Lucía Solla Sobral. It has been an enriching process, despite the fact that the story told is devastating—a deep dive into psychological abuse, a form of violence that leaves no visible scars but erodes the protagonist’s identity. She will discuss her literary journey and her work with Pablo Gil, journalist and culture editor at the newspaper El Mundo.
At the end of the event, the author will sign copies of her book
Event in Spanish
Price: €9.00 (EUR)
Co-organised with Acción Cultural Española, AC/E and in collaboration with Libros del Asteroide
Palestinian writer Adania Shibli speaks to us about fiction writing against the backdrop of disorienting experiences as an effect of decades-long Israeli colonial violence in Palestine. Shibli does so primarily through her literature, but also through events like this one. Following Minor Detail, the story of a young woman’s rape in the aftermath of the 1948 Palestinian Nakba and the creation of the Israeli state, which was nominated for the 2021 International Booker Prize and was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Translated Literature, comes Delusion, a novel in which two young characters try to move throughlife when hardly anything is possible for Palestinians as they are stripped not only of their lands but also dignity and dreams.
After the event, the author will be signing copies of her books
Event in English with simultaneous interpretation into Spanish
Price: €9.00 (EUR)
Co-organised with Open Society Foundations and Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial
Readers’ Clubs in Segovia and Seville with Víctor del Árbol
The Intentions of Víctor del Árbol
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Biblioteca Municipal Casa de la Lectura
Reading is once again breaking down walls and building bridges. Thanks to the Hay Festival and an initiative by the José Manuel Lara Foundation, the Reading Club of the Entreamigos Association in Polígono Sur, Seville (better known as the Tres Mil Viviendas neighbourhood) will be twinned with rural reading clubs in Segovia. As a result of this twinning, both clubs will read the work by writer Víctor del Árbol, Las buenas intenciones, together and will meet the author at the Hay Festival in Segovia.
The Seville-based reading club, made up of women, has been meeting every week for 10 years and sees reading as a means of personal growth and a way to escape situations of material and social vulnerability.
After the event, the author will be signing copies of his books
Event in Spanish
Price: €9.00 (EUR)
Co-organised with Acción Cultural Española, AC/E, the José Manuel Lara Foundation and the Segovia City Council, in collaboration with the Dos Amigos Foundation and the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum
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Torreón de Lozoya (entrada por la calle Grabador Espinoza)
Manuel Vilas, a key figure in contemporary Spanish literature, writes with raw emotion in his stories, for they reflect his life, its ups and downs and, above all, his struggles. With great pain and a glimmer of hope, Vilas celebrates the beauty of ‘staying alive’, come what may. In a conversation with Ana Gavín, Director of Publishing Relations at Grupo Planeta, he will take a journey through the end of a love affair and the arrival of a warm friendship, as recalled by the writer. They will focus, with particular interest, on the life, fiction and literature that intertwine in his latest and splendid novel: Islandia.
At the end of the event, the author will sign copies of his books
If human relationships are complex in themselves, those within the family can become labyrinths that are difficult to navigate due to the enormous weight of emotions, joys, pain, beauty and confusion they contain. Manuel Jabois, a leading voice in Spanish literature and opinion journalism, explores in La vìspera the first social institution: the family. And just as from the deepest love, red lines are sometimes crossed under a naive pretence: if things happened sometimes, they were sorted out, as in all families. Jabois is able to raise doubts through the harsh reality of things.
After the event, the author will sign copies of his books
Event in Spanish
Price: €9.00 (EUR)
Co-organised with Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial
Jesús García Calero and María José Solano in conversation
Geographies of Erotic Literature
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IE University. Refectorio
Geografía del deseo: 42 relatos eróticos began as an act of literary rebellion. Its authors, María José Solano and Jesús García Calero, decided to write 42 erotic stories during the pandemic because, while confined, touch was forbidden. The book explores desire across time and space, from antiquity to the 21st century, mapping a geography not only of bodies, but of gazes, cities, and personal mythologies. Before appearing as a book, arranged chronologically, some of the stories circulated on Zenda under pseudonyms. Thus were defined the two distinct voices: Solano’s, experiential and penetrating, embodying the lovers of his literary myths, and Calero’s, which documents and constructs narrative spaces and historical moments in which eroticism pushes to the limit what we know of the history of its protagonists.
Mónica González Inés in conversation with Laura Ventura
The Bonds of Beauty
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Biblioteca Municipal Casa de la Lectura
Excessive demands, guilt, and the fear of failure push us to live on the edge and turn mistakes into a form of personal failure. Mónica González Inés, who dazzled critics and readers alike with her debut novel, delves into these challenges and difficulties without mincing words: the exhaustion of life, our own fragility. And also as an invitation to nurture our connections and reclaim the use of time and silence. Precisely, El aire quema speaks to this: how long the image of a perfect life can be sustained—a woman at the peak of her career, with a solid and respectable life, who makes a mistake that will have serious consequences and, in an unexpected impulse, decides to hide it and embarks on a double life. She will discuss all of this with Laura Ventura, who holds a Ph.D. in Hispanic Philology and is a professor of literature at Carlos III University; she also writes for the Argentine newspaper La Nación.
At the end of the event, the author will sign copies of her books
Marta Jiménez Serrano and Nerea Pérez de las Heras in conversation
The Daily Wonder of Still Being Here
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IE University. Aula Magna
An accident can split a life in two. It can also become a way of looking at the world. Marta Jiménez Serrano and Nerea Pérez de las Heras draw on extreme experiences that nearly cost them their lives to create two books that transcend autobiographical narrative and delve into universal themes. In Oxígeno, Jiménez Serrano recalls the carbon monoxide poisoning that nearly killed her while weaving in reflections on love, family, housing, and precariousness. In Fantasma, Pérez de las Heras transforms the loss of part of her leg following a boating accident into a luminous and incisive reflection on the body, identity, public healthcare, exposure, and friendship. With sensitivity, humor, and a remarkable ability to transform personal experience into literature, both authors confront death head-on to celebrate the daily wonder of still being here.
Following the event, the authors will sign copies of their books
Event in Spanish
Price: €9.00 (EUR)
Co-organised with Acción Cultural Española, AC/E, in partnership with Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial
Margaryta Yakovenko in conversation with Jesús García Calero
Reinterpret the past
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IE University. Refectorio
Some lives are enough for many lives; and there are family stories whose recollection brings to light the history of their surroundings, sometimes dramatic. Margaryta Yakovenko emigrated to Spain at the age of 7 with her parents, leaving her loved ones behind in Ukraine. Today, everything has taken an unexpected turn, and that family now finds itself in an area invaded by Russia. Together with Jesús García Calero, a journalist and one of Spain’s leading experts in cultural outreach, she will explore the last century of a region that has been particularly turbulent. She will draw on her latest work, Ocupación, which serves as a reckoning with her past.
At the end of the event, the authors will sign copies of her book
Rosa Ribas, Marta Robles and Lorenzo Silva in conversation with Ana Gavín
A Character from a Crime Novel
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Teatro Juan Bravo
The crime novel is not just a smoking gun and a corpse. Alongside the clues and suspects, there is also a raw reflection of society and its less-than-exemplary corners. That is why it is important—as three true masters of the crime novel will demonstrate at this event—to clearly define how a character in this narrative genre is created. Lorenzo Silva, Marta Robles, and Rosa Ribas have created characters rooted in everyday reality: Civil Guards, detectives, and police officers who reveal the darkest aspects of our world. The noir in all its forms. The discussion will be moderated by Ana Gavín, Director of Publishing Relations at Grupo Planeta
At the end of the event, the authors will sign copies of their books
Alejandro Gándara and Gustavo Martín Garzo in conversation
The Unhurried Gaze of the Classics
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Biblioteca Municipal Casa de la Lectura
Two giants of Spanish literature, Alejandro Gándara and Gustavo Martín Garzo, advocate distancing themselves from the present and its technological disruption characterized by immediacy, and returning to the Greek classics and the Bible to rest their gaze. Both, through their respective works—especially their most recent ones—choose to draw from ancient sources to reposition the world through a beauty that lessens fear and anxiety. In short, to strengthen human intelligence in the face of other, always artificial, intelligences.
At the end of the event, the authors will sign copies of their books
Event in Spanish
Price: €9.00 (EUR)
Co-organized with Acción Cultural Española, AC/E and Galaxia Gutenberg
Mathias Enard in conversation with Helena de Bertodano
Melancholy of the Outskirts
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IE University. Refectorio
Cities and journeys through the traces left by the past and its memory are settings that Mathias Enard places at the heart of his works as in his latest book, Melancolía de los confines: Norte, in which he blends memoir, travelogue and literary essay. Physical landscapes, but also moral ones, run through his entire body of work, creating a kind of geographical, human and literary border. He explores other borders that have more to do with memory and with the ability to understand who we are when we cease to exist.His latest work, the first part of a quartet on the cardinal points, serves as a vehicle for discussing all this with Helena de Bertodano, a journalist specialising in interviews and profiles of celebrities for prestigious publications. The event will be presented by Zélie Perpignaa, an expert in cultural mediation and attaché for Books, the Exchange of Ideas, and Media Libraries at the Institut Français in Spain.
At the end of the event, the author will be signing copies of his books
Event in Spanish
Price: €9.00 (EUR)
Co-organized with the French Embassy in Spain and the Institut Français and in collaboration with Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial
