More than 180 speakers and performers include Wole Soyinka, Ai Weiwei, Yaa Gyasi, Reni Eddo Lodge, Anne Applebaum, Thomas Piketty, Adela Cortina, Juan Villoro, Irene Vallejo, Patrick-Radden Keefe, Camila Sosa Villada, Djamila Ribeiro, Jonathan Franzen, Daniel Kehlmann, Ruven Afanador, Moises Naím, Sergio Ramirez, Manuel Vilas, Carmen Maria Machado, Raul Zurita, Piedad Bonnett, Evelio Rosero, Yolanda Reyes, Ibram X Kendi, and more…
Hay Festival Cartagena has announced its 17th programme, 20-30 January, with global literary stars, Nobel Prize-winners and internationally acclaimed performers leading a line-up that encompasses 180 speakers from 20 countries with events in Colombia’s Cartagena de Indias (20-27 January), Medellín (24-27 January) and Jericó (20-23 January).
The Festival will see writers and readers come together live in-person and online to give voice to some of the biggest issues of our time, from the crisis in democracy, increasing inequalities, and the climate crisis to the role of culture in the spread of new ideas, while showcasing an array of award-winning fiction and non-fiction writers presenting new work.
In-person tickets are on sale now at hayfestival.org/cartagena, where events can also be streamed free, live online, and on replay.
These are the first Hay Festival events of 2022, kicking off a global calendar of editions that also encompasses Mexico, Peru, Spain, the US and the UK.
HAY JOVEN for students, HAY FESTIVALITO for young people, and a series of events in communities across Colombia, in partnership with Plan International, ensure that events reach the broadest possible audiences, live and online.
Since its first year in 2006, Hay Festival Cartagena has welcomed more than half a million book lovers to the Festival. Attracting more than 50,000 people annually, the Festival enjoys wider cultural impact across Latin America thanks to regional media partnerships with RCN TV and Radio, El País, El Tiempo, Arcadia and an international collaboration with BBC Mundo. Last year’s hybrid edition reached more than one million people online.
Cristina Fuentes La Roche, director of Hay Festival, said: “Hay Festival Cartagena begins the new year with an inspiring programme of artists, thinkers and innovators in-person and online to meet this moment of crisis with new visions for tomorrow. An event to offer a renewed sense of hope and vision, join us at the start of 2022 to imagine the world anew.”
Explore the full programme and register for events now at hayfestival.org/cartagena.
PROGRAMME OVERVIEW
Leading voices of world literature join acclaimed Colombian writers to share their new work in conversations with Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka (Chronicles From the Land of the Happiest People on Earth), Juan Villoro (La tierra de la gran promesa), Irene Vallejo (El infinito en un junco), Jonathan Franzen (Crossroads), Raul Zurita, Yaa Gyasi (Transcendent Kingdom), Juan Gabriel Vásquez (Volver la vista atrás), Sergio Ramirez (Tongolele no sabía bailar), Camila Sosa Villada (Las malas), Manuel Vilas (Los besos), Fernanda Trías, Mario Mendoza, Evelio Rosero (Casa de furia), Carmen María Machado (La casa de los sueños), Pilar Quintana (Los abismos), Felipe Restrepo Pombo (Ceremonia), Piedad Bonnet(El prestigio de la belleza), Pablo Montoya (La sombra de Orión), Vanessa Londoño (El asedio animal), Daniel Kehlmann(Tyll), Leonardo Padura (Como polvo en el viento), and José Luis Peixoto.
The latest ideas in science are showcased alongside issues around the global climate crisis in conversations with biologist Brigitte Baptiste, mycologist Aida Vasco, anthropologist Wade Davis and molecular biologist Carlos López Otín. Meanwhile, Icelandic writer Andri Snaer Magnason leads the first in the Festival’s global “Imagine…” series of conversations focussing on the climate emergency.
Philosophers and economists put some of the biggest issues of our time into context with appearances from Thomas Piketty, Adela Cortina, Julia Cagé, philosopher Wolfram Eilenberger, journalist Reni Eddo Lodge, Djamila Ribeiro, Vanessa Rosales and Yolanda Reyes.
Artists and musicians explore the world around us with exhibitions and conversations featuring Ruvén Afanador and Ana González Rojas paying tribute to the indigenous peoples of Colombia, director Daniel Brühl on his career, Vivek Shrayaon their Show, and music from Nidia Góngora, La Mambanegra, and a special gala tribute to the rich Latin American, Caribbean and Colombian musical tradition.
Award-winning journalists take centre stage with their latest work on the biggest issues of our times: Moisés Naim talks rising populism; Patrick Radden Keefe presents his Baillie Gifford Prize-winning Empire of Pain, Martín Caparrós talks corruption and inequality in Latin America, Pulitzer Prize-winner
Anne Boyer talks Desmorir, Sandra Borda speaks to Cayetana Alvarez de Toledo about contemporary politics, María Jimena Duzán talks to Francisco de Roux about building peace, and Jean François Fogel, Daniel Coronel, Samper Pizano, Samper Ospina and Ana Bejarano discuss press independence.
The world in 2021 is brought into focus in free digital conversations with Pulitzer Prize-winner
Anne Applebaum on The Twilight of Democracy, French writer Hervé Le Tellier, Professor Carissa Véliz on AI, historian Ibram X Kendi, and artist and activist Ai Weiwei.
Global Hay Festival projects are celebrated as writers Juan Cárdenas and Velia Vidal discuss changing historical narratives in the first Festival event in partnership with the Santo Domingo Centre of Excellence for Latin American Research at the British Museum; the latest Kew Gardens Platform event sees biologists Mauricio Diazgranados and Aida Vasco talk to writerBrigitte Baptiste about fungi, and the Eccles Centre platform is a tribute to libraries with Colombian librarians Martín Murillo, Silvia Castrillón and Luis Bernardo Yepes.
For younger book lovers, HAY FESTIVALITO and HAY COMMUNITARIO feature free workshops, talks and activities with writers and illustrators from around the world including journalist Catalina Gómez Ángel, fusion salsa group La Mambanegra, authors Raquel Martínez-Gómez, Valentina Toro, Manuela Molina, Mariángela Urbina, and Julia Barceló, and poet Alexis Díaz Pimenta.
Explore the full programme and reserve tickets now at hayfestival.org/cartagena.