Héctor Abad Faciolince

(Medellín, 1958), son of Cecilia Faciolince and Héctor Abad Gómez, a prominent doctor, university professor and human rights advocate, who was also the founder of the Colombian National School of Public Health, is a Colombian writer, translator and journalist.

He studied Modern Languages and Literature at the University of Turin from 1982 to 1987. He was Director of the Revista de la Universidad de Antioquia (1993-1997), Director of the EAFIT University Press (2004-2006) and then Director of the Luis Echavarría Villegas Library Cultural Center at EAFIT University (2013-2017). He also worked as a journalist and columnist for various Colombian media publications: El Espectador, Cromos, El Colombiano, and the magazines Cambio and Semana. He has received the Simón Bolívar National Journalism Award twice (1998 and 2007) for his opinion articles.

His essays, translations and literary criticism include: The Joy of Being Awake (Brookline, 1996), Recipes for sad women (Pushkin, 2012), Fragmentos de amor furtivo (Alfaguara, 1998), Basura (2000, Lengua de Trapo de Narrativa Innovadora Prize), Angosta (2003; Alfaguara, 2020), La Oculta (Alfaguara, 2015), Lo que fue presente (Alfaguara, 2019) and his most recent novel Salvo mi corazón, todo está bien (Alfaguara, 2022). His most celebrated book, Oblivion: A Memoir (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), tells the story of his father, Dr. Héctor Abad Gómez, and the circumstances surrounding his murder, and has received multiple accolades in different countries.

He is currently a columnist and editorial advisor for the newspaper El Espectador. He also contributes to El País in Madrid, Neue Zürcher Zeitung in Zurich and other national and international publications. His novels have been translated into different languages, including English, Portuguese, Italian, Chinese, French and German.

Other activities involving the participant:

Latin America Viva

Xuan Bello

Invitado de Honor

He was born in Paniceiros, Tineo, Asturias, in 1965, although he soon moved to Oviedo. He has spent long periods living in various cities in Portugal. A fellow at the Spanish Academy in Rome in 2003, he has given lectures in several American and European countries. For years, he has been a member of the jury for the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature.

His narrative career began with the Spanish translation of his novel Hestoria universal de Paniceiros, which received the Premio Villa de Madrid Ramón Gómez de la Serna. Other books of his, originally written in Asturian and translated by the author into Spanish, include Pantames, mundos, laberintos (1996); La memoria del mundu (1998); Meditaciones nel desiertu (2003); Los cuarteles de la memoria (2003); Snow and other circumstantial supplements (2007); Al dios del llugar (2007); Las cosas que me gustan (2008); Escrito en el jardín (2009); La historia escondida (2018); Crisis (2021) and Incierta historia de la verdad (2022).

In 1982, he published his first book of poems, Nel cuartu mariellu, followed by Llibru de les cenices (1988), Os nomes da tierra (1991), El llibru vieyu (1993), El llibru nuevu (2017) and Les isles inciertes (2019). His poetry has been translated into languages such as Spanish, Galician, Catalan, Basque, Italian, Greek, English and German.

In 2009, he received the Premio de la Crítica RPA for his bilingual poetry book Ambos mundos. In 2017, he was awarded the inaugural edition of the Premio Nacional de Literatura Asturiana for the “extraordinary quality and relevance of his literary career, which has played a fundamental role in the dignification and visibility of Asturian literature (…), as well as for the national and international reach of his work with numerous translations into different languages.”

Isabel Zapata

Born in Mexico City in 1984. She studied Political Science at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) and Philosophy at the New School for Social Research, New York. She is the author of the books Las noches son así, Alberca vacía, Una ballena es un país, In vitro, Tres animales que caben en el agua and Troika. Her work has been included in Mexican media such as the Revista de la Universidad de México, Periódico de poesía and Letras libres, among others, and in international media like World Literature Today (US) and Ancrages (Canada). In 2015, she founded, with four friends, Ediciones Antílope, which, under the slogan “we make books we would like to read,” has consolidated a catalog that spans fiction, non-fiction, poetry and essay.

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Latin America Viva

Jordi Amat

Invitado de Honor

(Barcelona, 1978) is a writer and philologist. A specialist in 20th-century Hispanic non-fiction literature, he has written various biographies and essays in Catalan and Spanish to understand the reconstruction of democratic culture in contemporary Spain.

His latest books, published by Tusquets publishing house, include the novel based on real events, El hijo del chófer, and the biography Vencer el miedo.Vida de Gabriel Ferrater.

He coordinates the Babelia supplement of El País and writes opinion pieces for this same newspaper.

Other activities involving the participant:

Meetings (and misunderstandings). Cultural journalism in an era of excess