The Hay Festival 2018 has arrived in Cartagena and lovers of literature and the arts are prepared to enjoy four days filled with talks, book presentations and academic events.
World leaders, innovators and prizewinners are getting ready to join Hay Festival Cartagena de Indias 2018 – an event to open the mind and exchange experiences and opinions about culture.
Why attend Hay Festival?
It’s the best way to participate in an open space where students, intellectuals, academics, writers and anyone curious about culture in general can exchange opinions, ideas and new ways of interpreting the world today through arts and letters.
Some of the guests for this edition are Nobel Prize for Literature winners J.M. Coetzee and Salman Rushdie, novelists and writers Yaa Gyasi, Guillermo Arriaga, David Rieff, Andréa Marcolongo, Marina Garcés and Carolina Emcke. Activist Nadya Tolonko and singers Ana Belén and Víctor Manuel are also participating.
The Hay Festival 2018 will be held from January 25-28 and will feature over 150 internationally acclaimed writers and leaders not only in events in Cartagena – where the main festival is taking place – but also across the country, with parallel programming in Medellín, Riohacha, Bogotá, San Andrés, Buenaventura, Santa Marta and various parts of Bolívar department.
Unmissable events
Attendees this year will have the opportunity to listen to Salman Rushdie, who will be talking about his career and his most recent book The Golden House (in Spanish La decadencia de Nerón Golden), a brilliant story about American society from Obama to the current administration.
Another highlight will be the young Ghanaian-American Yaa Gyasi, who has attracted many readers and wowed critics with her first novel, Homegoing.
Kids and teenagers have a special place in Hay Festival with the participation of recognised young adult writers including the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize winner Jenny Valentine and the Spanish writer Nando López.
“The Hay Festival ceased to be a single event for literature, to become a democratic one. We want to present visions of the world that will allow us to have the dream that we all have the possibility of building a better one,” says Amalia de Pombo, Hay Festival Director.
For cinema lovers, the Hay Festival will have some events including a talk by Ana Belén, who will be sharing details about her career as an actress. There will also be a conversation between the editor Marianne Ponsford and the Mexican writer and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga.
The well-received and Oscar-nominated Venezuelan film El Inca, directed by Ignacio Castillo Cottin, will have a special screening, as well as Vida y ficción, a documentary by José Ovejero and Edurne Portela.
You can check the full Hay Festival 2018 programme on the official website: www.hayfestival.com