Subscribe or Log In to Anytime
Access audio & film from your favourite writers and thinkers
Give the gift of Anytime
Treat someone to a Hay Festival Anytime subscription

Humberto de La Calle in conversation with Octavio Escobar

Everything that looks like a novel is pure coincidence

Jericó 2024, 

The lawyer Humberto de la Calle (Colombia) was a government minister during the César Gaviria presidency, Vice-president of the Republic, and Ambassador to Spain and then the United Kingdom in the late 1990s; in 2012 he was designated Head Negotiator of the government delegation during the peace process with the FARC. After the signing of the Final Agreement at the Colón Theatre, he was presidential candidate in 2018. Today he is a Senator in the Congress of Colombia. He has recently published a novel based on real events: La inverosímil muerte de Hércules Pretorius, about a young lawyer who has always been interested in the idea of a peaceful social revolution. The M-19 movement is growing in the convulsive Colombia of the 1970s, and this gives Hércules, and many others, an option and hope in terms of fighting for his ideals. In conversation with Octavio Escobar.

Humberto de La Calle in conversation with Octavio Escobar