The Hay Festival transforms the whole of Segovia into a festival of words, images, and thinking

• A celebration of reading and debate on the future of our cities and the challenges our world faces will form the cornerstones of the festival
• Richard Ford, Antonio Muñoz Molina, Jeanette Winterson, Leila Slimani, Richard Rogers, Deyan Sudjic, Philippe Sands and Guillermo de la Dehesa will lead the first events to go on sale from Thursday, June 22    
• “Earlybird” tickets for events at the 12th edition of Hay Festival Segovia go on sale on Thursday, June 22  

The twelfth edition of the Hay Festival, Spain’s biggest ideas event, will be held in Segovia this year between September 16 and 24.

"We will celebrate the ritual of reading and we’ll tell stories,” says María Sheila Cremaschi, director of the Hay Festival Segovia. “We will discuss cities of the past, present and future, as well as the world we live in, with all the political, economic and social challenges of our complex reality."

With more than 70 events, the Festival will take over the streets of Segovia, along with churches, monasteries, gardens, palaces and squares. There will be exhibitions held in landmarks such as the Huerta de Félix Ortiz, La Alhóndiga or the Plaza Mayor, coupled with film screenings in the Cinemateca La Cárcel and debates in the Aula Magna of the Campus of Santa Cruz la Real de IE University and San Juan de los Caballeros.

“Listening also means reading” is one of the guiding principles of the Festival. From day one there will be public readings throughout Segovia, in places that include the Jardines del Romeral de San Marcos, now a classic Hay event. In the Plaza Mayor and Plaza de San Martin, thirty actors will cite classic and modern poems to passers-by. In the Palacio de Quintanar, Dolores Redondo, winner of last year’s Planeta prize for Todo esto te daré (All this I will give) and one of the most successful Spanish writers in recent years, will read from her work on Friday, September 8, offering a taste of the Festival which continues on Friday, September 22 in the Aula Magna of IE University’s Santa Cruz la Real campus.

The list of major literary names this year will include Richard Ford, holder of the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature 2016, considered one of the best writers of his generation and the only winner of the Pulitzer prize and the PEN / Faulkner for the same novel, Independence Day. Ford will read from his new book, Between Them, a portrait of his parents. Additionally Jeanette Winterson, the charismatic British author of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, will share her passion for Shakespeare.

From France comes the winner of the 2016 Goncourt prize, Leila Slimani, a writer of Moroccan origin living in Paris. The closing event on Sunday 24 September will feature Santiago Posteguillo, whose novels about ancient Rome and of the Emperor Trajan are bestsellers in Spain.

Cities will also be the subject of a further discussion led by one of the most famous architects in the world, Richard Rogers, Pritzker Prize 2007, who revolutionized modern architecture with the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris. Rogers, who also designed the T4 Madrid Barajas Airport and, very close to Segovia, the headquarters of the Protos winery in Peñafiel, will be talking to Martha Thorne, director of the Pritzker Prize and dean of IE University’s School of Architecture. Deyan Sudjic, director of the Design Museum in London, will discuss the impact of urban planning on communities and the individual.

Where would cities be without gastronomy? Ruth Rogers, chef of the Michelin-starred London restaurant The River Café and a best-selling cookery writer, will be at the Hay Festival to discuss the role of food in our culture.

Lorenzo de’ Medici, a direct descendant of the famous Renaissance family, will be examining great cities of the past. He will be talking about Florence with Guillermo Solana, artistic director of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, which is currently celebrating its 25th anniversary and will be present at Hay Festival Segovia with a series of screenings, documentaries and workshops. The story of Jacobite Scotland will be told by Catherine Maxwell-Stuart, Lady of Traquair, heir to one the oldest family estates in Scotland and directly related to the House of Stuart. Giles Tremlett will also be there to talk about England in the times of Catherine of Aragon, the subject of a biography by this British writer and correspondent for The Economist.

A debate of ideas

Hay Festival Segovia will also provide a forum to discuss today’s world, with an extraordinary list of names, among them Philippe Sands, a British jurist, whose recent book East West Street on the origins of legislation to punish genocide and crimes against humanity has been widely discussed and received several awards. In addition, one of Spain’s best-known authors internationally, Antonio Muñoz Molina, will be talking to Peter Florence, director and founder of the Hay Festival, about key ethical issues of our time. British philosopher and academic A.C. Grayling will discuss the crisis of democracy with Manuel Muñiz, an expert on governments of change.

The economy and the present and future of Europe will again be under discussion by leading figures such as Juan María Nin, former vice president and CEO of Caixa Bank, and a member of the board of Día and Societe Generale, Guillermo de la Dehesa, economist and chairman of IE Business School’s Advisory Board, and Joaquin Almunia, politician and a key player in the EU in recent decades. Issues such as immigration and peace processes will be discussed by writers and thinkers like screenwriter Nikesh Shukla, Alvaro Gil-Robles or International lawyer Mark Muller Stuart.

Hay Festival Segovia is supported by private sponsors that include Fundación Lara, IE Foundation / IE University, Telefónica Foundation, Valsaín Foundation, Albéniz Foundation, Banco Sabadell Foundation, Prosegur Foundation, Renfe, Reina Sofia Music School, the British Council, the Goethe Institut and the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC). The Festival also enjoys the support of public institutions that include the Spanish Ministry of Culture, Education and Sport, Spanish Cultural Action (ACE), the Castilla y León regional authorities, the Provincial Council of Segovia and the City of Segovia.

About the Hay Festival

In 1987, in Hay-on-Wye, a small town on the border between England and Wales that is home to 1,500 people and two dozen bookstores, two residents, Peter Florence and his father Norman, decided to hold a literary festival. Since then, Hay has grown to become one of the most important forums for ideas in the world, attracting hundreds of thousands of people every year. There are currently Hay Festivals in Europe and Latin America.

Over the last decade, Segovia has captured the spirit of the original Hay Festival, attracting about 20,000 visitors and turning the city into a cultural showcase widely covered by national and international media.

* From Thursday June 22 “earlybird” tickets for the Hay Festival Segovia 2017 will be on sale. Tickets can be purchased from the Festival website and from Segovia’s ten bookstores.

The full program will go on sale on July 10.

Programme and tickets:

www.hayfestival.com/segovia

Photo: Leila Slimani