Edward Davey
Cartagena: a literary lilt in the air
The fifth Hay Festival in Cartagena, Colombia’s jewel on the Caribbean Coast, has begun in style. The sun has shone brightly, drawing out the vivid yellows, pinks and blues of the colonial cit’s houses, churches, theatres and cafés; the breezes from the sea sweep through the streets; salsa and the sound of fruit-sellers bellowing out their wares adds a lilt to the air; and a flurry of linen-clad authors, readers and observers meander from one literary event to the next. The festival began on Wednesday evening in Colombia’s cosmopolitan capital, Bogotá (the “Athens of South America,” as it is sometimes referred to on the continent), with an hour’s conversation between Ian McEwan and Festival Director Peter Florence. Five hundred or so people listened with rapt attention as McEwan talked about his work, in particular On Chesil Beach: its composition, characters, influences, the melancholy of Florence’s disappearance from the last pages, the context of the time, their inability to overcome their traumatic experience.
It was a wide-ranging conversation, touching on the value of the novella as opposed to the novel; the mathematical structure with which McEwan begins the planning of each book that he writes; his experience writing screenplays and libretti, a humbling demotion in the case of screenplays from the role of God to a scribe whose work is subject to constant change at the whim of directors, actors and the rest; the celebrated passage in Atonement in which Briony contemplates the fingers of her hand, which the Colombian students present had found extraordinarily powerful; and the wider impact McEwan’s novels have had on his readers, here and worldwide. It was a fascinating hour and one could hear a pin drop in the packed public library in which the event was held.
Arriving in Cartagena, there is a buzz in the air. Octagenarian Gabriel García Márquez is here, a rare and exciting event as he spends most of each year in his permanent home in Mexico City. Your Prospect blogger made his perennial pilgrimage to the author’s forbidding but stylish house, built in the sixties by Colombia’s preeminent (late) architect Rogelio Salmona, to see if he might catch a glimpse of the great man. But Gabo has – surprisingly – left the city for a day or two: might this coincide with the presence of Mario Vargas Llosa, the great Peruvian novelist? As Gerald Martin’s biography of ‘Gabo’ explains, the two men have never spoken – despite an earlier strong friendship—since Vargas Llosa punched García Márquez, and almost knocked him out, outside a Mexican cinema in 1976. The cause of the punch has never been known, although conjecture abounds. Read more »
Brian Semple
How The Light Gets In, the UK's first philosophy and music festival, kicks off this weekend in Hay-on-Wye
The last ten years have seen dramatic changes in what we expect from summer festivals. Not so long ago the choices were limited to tunnelling under the fence at Glastonbury, or champagne and warbling for a privileged few at Glyndebourne. But each year brings a plethora of new and innovative festivals, and now for the more cerebral festival-goer there is the Prospect sponsored How The Light Gets In, the UK’s first philosophy and music festival which starts this Friday at Hay and runs until 31st May.
The festival invites guest to “think/listen/dance/play”, and offers a programme ranging from philosophy seminars to arts and theatre workshops and musical performances. The line-up includes Susan Neiman, Will Hutton, Phillip Blond and Geoff Mulgan, as well as Prospect’s own David Goodhart, who will be discussing market regulation and individual freedoms. Other topics of discussion include religious fundamentalism, utopianism, revolution and the enlightenment.
After putting the world to rights, guests can relax in the evenings when the music starts, with everything from indie folk to Afro-Celt fusion and reggae. Click here for more details.
Edward Davey
Cartegena
The day began in style with a tour de force from Jon Snow, in the beautiful courtyard of the Claustro de Santo Domingo. Dappled sunlight fell on the 300-strong crowd, 3/4 Colombian, 1/4 Anglophone. Snow spoke fluently, amusingly and with conviction on the theme of ´living with the gringos´, recounting his first-hand experiences as a journalist during and after the humanitarian crisis of the Vietnamese boat people in the 1970s (where America was held to be a saviour, the beneficent helping hand); the Iranian Revolution and its aftermath (with America the surly and uncommunicative); the horrors of conflict in Central America in the 1980s (with America the reactionary and paranoid); and then the tragedy of the Iraq war, and the “war on terror” (with America at its most belligerent).
All of this — via an irreverent account of the politics of the last two papal elections, at which Snow was also present (much enjoyed by the crowd: and, deliciously, delivered to the sound of the singing of mass wafting over from the church next door) — served as a prelude to Snow’s heartfelt account of Obama’s success. Fresh from the inauguration, and inspired by readings of Dreams from my Father and Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Snow waxed lyrical about the prospects of an Obama administration — as much for Colombia and Latin America, as for the rest of the world. It was gripping stuff; delivered with panache; and much enjoyed by the (partisan) crowd. A wider account of Snow’s experiences and reflections here can be find at his blog.
A few hours later, after a talk by the American author Isabel Fonseca about her non-fiction work on gypsies and her recently-published first novel, Attachment, a full house gathered in Teatro Heredia to listen to the Dominican Republican Pulitzer-prize-winning novelist Junot Diaz in conversation with Eduardo Lago, literary critic, academic and director of the Cervantes Institute in New York. This was the stuff of which literary festivals are made: a visceral, exciting conversation (about life, work, fiction, culture, identity and politics), between two brilliant minds, fuelled by a sympathetic audience which posed excellent questions. Diaz is a captivating figure, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao – his first novel — wholly sui generis; Lago, an earthy, fast-speaking Spaniard, slumped in his chair and at times bairly audible, was the perfect interlocutor. The crowd left the theatre buoyant and uplifted. Read more »
Edward Davey
Cartagena: Iglesia de San Pedro
It has been a good start to the Hay Festival in Cartagena. The old colonial city centre has never looked more beautiful: glorious, dilapidated colonial houses; blazing sunshine; and full of Colombian coastal life, with voluptuous fruit-sellers balancing plates of watermelon, papaya and pineapple on their heads; vallenato, the Colombian coastal music at which Gabriel Garcia Marquez excels, streaming out of bars at every street corner; and cars, cyclists and pedestrians breezing through the narrow streets.
Three events of note today: first, the official opening of the Festival, carried out in the handsome 17th-century Teatro Heredia, by the Latin American pop icon, Juanes, and his musical partner and muse, the Spaniard Miguel Bosé. Interviewed by the editor of the main Colombian broadsheet, El Tiempo, both celebrities spoke with endearing modesty and genuine conviction about their charitable activities, their commitment to peace in Latin America, and their perceptions of their role as committed musicians contributing to public life (most famously, in Juanes’ concert in mid-2008 on the Colombia-Venezuela border following the build-up of tensions between both countries).
Juanes is indeed an important figure here: his recent endorsement of the former mayor of Medellín, Sergio Fajardo, for Colombia´s presidency in 2010, has made all the news, and contributed more to derailing the ever-popular Alvaro Uribe´s aspirations to be re-elected for a third term than any of Colombia’s recent political vicissitudes (of which there have been many). Read more »
Edward Davey
Making Hay, Latin-style
Hay-on-Wye’s sister literary festival in the altogether sunnier climes of Colombia’s Caribbean coast begins next week, and I will be writing a daily blog for Prospect from Cartagena to cover the event, as well as interviewing some of the authors present. There’s an enticing line-up of literary and cultural figures due to attend: Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis and Jon Snow, chief among the British guests, and several of Latin America’s most interesting contemporary novelists also.
The festival takes place in former Spanish colonial buildings, and a stone’s throw from the house of the Colombia’s literary giant Gabriel Garcia Marquez (whose biographer, Gerald Martin, will also be in attendance).
Rushdie is set to talk about his most recent novel, The Enchantress of Florence, and the influence that Marquez’s magical realism has had on his work. Amis will be in conversation with Peter Florence, director of the Hay festival. And Jon Snow, fresh from the inauguration in Washington DC, is to talk on the theme of viviendo con los gringos, taking in his career covering events from Central America to Iraq. Climate change, the global press and Colombia’s political situation will also receive ample coverage.
Novelists from across Latin America will present and read from their work; Alberto Ruy Sanchez (Mexico), William Ospina (Colombia), Junot Diaz (Colombia) and Alberto Manguel (Argentina) amongst the most celebrated of those present. It promises to be a fascinating encounter.
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