The Hay Festival Cartagena de Indias 2025 celebrates its twentieth edition this year from January 30 to February 2. The Festival is an internationally recognized event that brings together writers, thinkers, scientists, artists and opinion leaders from around the world. It offers a space for dialogue, debate and the exchange of ideas on a wide range of topics, including literature, science, politics, the environment and culture.
AC/E supports, once again and at the request of the Festival, the participation of the following Spanish authors and thinkers:
RAÚL QUINTO
He has a degree in Art History from the University of Granada and lives in Almería, where he works as a professor. This poet and narrator collaborates with media such as Quimera, and is one of the coordinators of the José Ángel Valente Faculty of Poetry. Quinto has published in numerous anthologies and magazines, and is the author of poetry collections such as Grietas, La piel del vigilante (Premio Andalucía Joven 2004), La flor de la tortura, Ruido blanco, La lengua rota and Sola. He has also created hybrid literature such as Yosotros, Hijo or La canción de NOF4, works for which he was awarded the 2004 Andalucía Joven Poetry Prize, the 2008 Francisco de Villaespesa International Poetry Prize, the 2022 Alfonso X Literature Prize and the Cálamo Prize. In 2024 he was awarded the Critics' Prize for Narrative and the National Narrative Prize for Martinete del rey sombra, where he narrates the Great Raid that the gypsy people suffered in 1749. An original fictional essay of historical interpretation" in which he narrates a little-known episode in the history of Spain, "The Great Raid" which meant the imprisonment and slavery of the gypsy people in the time of Fernando VI.
RAFAEL NAVARRO DE CASTRO
Graduate in Sociology and diploma in Extension and Rural Development. He lived and worked in Madrid in the audiovisual sector for years until, at the turn of the century, he decided to leave everything and settle in Monachil, a town in the foothills of Sierra Nevada, where he has dedicated himself to traditional agriculture, mountain plumbing, raising laying hens and environmental activism. From the experiences of her early years in the village came La tierra desnuda, her first novel, published in 2019, which has reached its fourth edition with enthusiastic reviews from readers and the media. Planeta ecológica (Alianza Editorial), her second novel, tells the story of an agricultural engineer who works for a fruit and vegetable cooperative, a life in which companies with uncontrolled growth, edible technologies, and ancestral techniques are mixed.
VIRGINIA MENDOZA
Journalist and anthropologist, she is the author of the books of chronicles Quién te cerradora los ojos (Libros del K.O.) and Heridas del viento (La línea del horizonte). She has written for media such as Yorokobu, Ling, Altaïr, Jot Down, Papel (from the newspaper El Mundo). Her work has moved away from journalism to make way for the dissemination of anthropological topics in media such as Muy Interesante and RNE. Her latest book, Thirst (Editorial Debate), collects and connects old and new scientific discoveries with a host of unusual inherited stories. It was written based on her childhood memories in the town in La Mancha where she was born and traces a historical journey through the consequences of thirst (wars, exoduses, new religious rites or the water consumption necessary for the use of cutting-edge technology).
MARÍA HESSE
This illustrator, adopted by Seville, has worked for different publishers, magazines and commercial brands, and her work has been exhibited in several exhibitions. Her works are characterized by the naive style of her illustrations with which she expresses, however, very powerful messages, especially from a feminist and inclusive perspective. After the publishing phenomenon that was her first illustrated album, Frida Kahlo. A biography (Lumen, 2016), translated into fifteen languages and winner of the National Foundation for Children's and Young Adult Books Award in Brazil, Lumen has published Bowie. A biography (2018), Pleasure (2019), Marilyn. A biography (2020) and, now, Bad Women. Her work is present in eighteen countries and in 2021 she received the Cosmopolitan Influencer Award in the Art category.