Hay Festival Forum Panamá 2024

In 2022, the writer, cultural manager and reading promotor Velia Vidal (Colombia) was named as one of the world’s 100 most influential women by the BBC. She is the founder and Director of the Motete Cultural and Educational Corporation which works to promote reading and culture in her region (Chocó). With her first book, Aguas de estuario, the author tells of her personal return to her homeland to dedicate her life to offering reading support and cultural management, how the tensions between the centre and the periphery in a country like Colombia define much of this journey, and her struggle to dissolve these divisions. Her most recent publication, Para vernos mejor, is a reflection on representation in children’s literature, which questions a system that continues to privilege hegemonic discourses. In conversation with Elisa Guerra.

Daniel Mordzinski (Argentina), known as the photographer of writers, has created a body of work and an aesthetic closely linked to literature and its mystique: from his first photos of Jorge Luis Borges in 1978, to the hundreds of writers who have posed for his camera, and with over 15 years linked to the Hay Festivals. His most recent work is Hotel Chile, in which he remembers the great Chilean writer Luis Sepúlveda with some of his texts and, of course, photos. He will talk to Carlos Wynter Melo.

The sociologist and researcher, Josefa Sánchez Contreras, belongs to the Zoque people of Chimalapas, in Mexico. As a researcher, she writes about territorial defence, indigenous rights and the history of rebellions and colonialisms; she is the co-author of the book Colonialismo energético. As an activist, she is part of the Matza Collective, made up of young Zoques, which supports the defence of the rivers of the Chimalapas forest against open-cast mining megaprojects. Duiren Wagua is an indigenous filmmaker and producer of the Gunadule Nation of Panama, and has nine years of experience in the world of national cinema. He is the co-founder of Wagua Films, an organisation that works with production companies wishing to film in indigenous territories within Panama; he has created and given workshops for Colombian and Central American participants. They will talk to Emma Gómez Guerra.

Wade Davis is one of the most intrepid explorers of our times. He was Explorer-in-Residence with the National Geographic Society from 2000 to 2013. He is an ethnographer, photographer, filmmaker and Professor of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of 23 books, including Magdalena (about his journey along the great Colombian river) and One River. His expeditions have taken him to some of the most remote regions of the planet, from Tibet to Polynesia, from the Arctic Circle to the Amazon, and from the heart of Australia to the Isthmus of Darien. In conversation with Ligia Castro.

Simultaneous translation from English to Spanish available

Héctor Abad Faciolince (Colombia) is one of Colombia’s most acclaimed and loved voices, author of the contemporary classic Oblivion. A Memoir. Winner of various prizes for fiction and for journalism (including the Simón Bolívar Prize), his works have been translated into 15 languages. In 2016 he founded the Colombian independent publishing company Angosta. His latest novel, Salvo mi corazón, todo está bien, is based on true events and tells the story of a priest who is waiting for a heart transplant. The writer, lawyer and philanthropist, Juan David Morgan (Panama), is the author of the recent Fugitivos del paisaje, a fascinating story set in rural Chiriquí, where the Thomas-Calero family settles; through this family we are offered a saga that tells of the deceptions, triumphs, romances and tragedies of three generations in a magnificent historical setting. In conversation with Emma Gómez Guerra.

The historian Andrea Wulf (Germany/UK), winner of the 2013 Eccles Centre & Hay Festival Writer's Award, is the author of the acclaimed and bestselling biography of Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), The Invention of Nature (2016). The visionary German naturalist and explorer was an audacious adventurer who helped to create the way we understand nature today. He was the most famous scientist of his times and predicted human-caused climate change. In her book, Wulf follows his footsteps up Andean volcanoes and along the River Orinoco. She also traces his ideas, which revolutionised and moulded science, conservation, nature writing, politics, art and the theory of evolution. She will talk to Sergio Dahbar.

Simultaneous translation from English to Spanish available

What is Panama’s role in the global context? How prepared is the country to face its greatest challenges? Panama knows well about two of the 21st-century’s most urgent problems: migratory crises and the climate emergency. Three experts will talk about these matters in the Panamanian context, tackling the protection of the territory’s biodiversity and the social and geopolitical challenges of the forests of Darien. With the journalist Jon Lee Anderson (United States), the ethnologist and explorer Wade Davis (Canada), climate change expert Ligia Castro, and the economist and administrator of the Panama Canal, Ricaurte Vásquez. They will be in conversation with Lina Vega.