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Brenda Navarro and Mónica Ojeda talk to Chris Power

Kinship, Memory and Survival

Hay Festival 2026, 

Feel the power of two stories from South America as award-winning Mexican author Brenda Navarro and acclaimed Ecuadorian storyteller Mónica Ojeda discuss kinship, memory and survival in the face of collective trauma. Navarro’s Eating Ashes, which is set to receive a film adaptation releasing in Autumn 2026, follows the experience of a woman caught between rage and heartbreak in the wake of her teenage brother’s suicide. In Ojeda’s psychedelic novel Electric Shamans at the Festival of the Sun, a wild tale of two women attending an underground music festival high in the Andes gives way to a heartfelt meditation on love, family and kinship.

Navarro and Ojeda speak to Guardian literary critic Chris Power, exploring themes of violence, displacement and loss in tandem with courage and hope.

Brenda Navarro and Mónica Ojeda talk to Chris Power