The island of La Palma will be the meeting point for around forty leading literary figures working in Spanish, in the first Hispanoamerican Festival of Authors, which will take place in Los Llanos de Aridane (La Palma) from September 18th to 22nd. This literary event has been founded with the aim of giving an impulse to culture in Spanish via one of its main facets; literatura. With this aim during five days there will be many diverse acts, such as panel discussions, recitals, lectures, tributes, book signings, and talks for young people.
Tribute to Stephen Hawking
Among the activities planned which will be open to the public, on September 21st, at 21 p.m., the IAC will collaborate in a tribute to the figure of the recently deceased Stephen Hawking, Honorary Professor of this research centre. Hawking visited Tenerife and La Palma twice, to participate in the multidisciplinary festivals Starmus 2014 and 2016.
In this tribute there will be participation by the astrophysicists Rafael Rebolo, cosmologist and director of the IAC who will give a brief description of the life and work of Stephen Hawking, and Jorge Casares, an IAC researcher, expert in black holes, (who discovered the first stellar mass black hole from the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory) together with the authors Mónica Lavín, Research Professor in the Academy of Literary Creation in the Autonomous University of Mexico City, and Carmen Posadas, winner of the Planet prize in 1998, whose work has been translated into 23 languages. The chair of this panel discussion will be Carmen del Puerto, Head of the Unit of Communication and Scientific Culture at the IAC.
Visit to the Observatory
El Festival Hispanoamericano de Escritores reunirá a unos cuarenta escritores, españoles e hispanoamericanos, que tendrán la oportunidad de visitar las instalaciones del Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, en el municipio palmero de Garafía, durante su estancia en la Isla. El consejo del Festival está compuesto por los escritores Elsa López, Alonso Cueto, J. J. Armas Marcelo y Anelio Rodríguez Concepción, y está dirigido por el también escritor y editor Nicolás Melini.
The HispanoAmerican Festival of Authors will bring together some forty Spanish and Hispanoamerican authors who will be given the opportunity to viist the installations of the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, in the La Palma municipality of Garafía, during their stay on the island. The organizing committee of the Festival comprises the authors Elsa López, Alonso Cueto, J.J. Armas Marcelo and Anelio Rodríguez Concepción, and is led by the author and editor Nicolás Melini.
Among the participents in the Spanish liteary scene who will attend are Juan Manuel Bonet, José Esteban, José Manuel Fajardo, Luis Goytisolo, J.J. Armas Marcelo, Javier Olivares, Ernesto Pérez Zúñiga, Carmen Posadas and Blanca Riestra. Acting as hosts will be the authors living in the Canaries: Roberto A. Cabrera, José Luis Correa, Cecilia Domínguez Luis, Santiago Gil, Ricardo Hernández Bravo, Teresa Iturriaga Osa, Luis León Barreto, Elsa López, Maiki Martín Francisco, Alexis Ravelo, Anelio Rodríguez Concepción, Alba Sabina Pérez and Ernesto Suárez.
Among the Hispanoamerican authors who will be at the Festival are José Balza, Gonzalo Celorio, Juan Carlos Chirinos, Valeria Correa Fiz, Carlos Franz, Hernán Lara Zavala, Mónica Lavín, Francisco Javier Pérez Hernández y Alberto Ruy Sánchez. There will also be a group of observers and international literary experts such as the French editor Jean Marie Desbois, the writer and the director of the FIL on Isla Margarita Antonio López Ortega, the Peruvian bookseller and editor Rodrigo Díaz Pino, and the writer and diplomatist Patrick Deville.
Programme of activities
As well as the tribute to Hawking the programme of the Festival includes: two lectures, an inaugural lecture and a closing lecture, seven panel discussions, in which there will be discussions on questions such as the novel, Galdós and María Rosa Alonso, genders and poetry, the literary relations between the Canaries, Spain, and Hispanoamerica, literature in Venezuela, and the short story; five acts for young people, in which the authors will talk to students about the nature of literature, why read and write, Bohemia, and other themes related to the office of being an author; two major recitals; and encounter with reading circles; a live radio transmission within the programme on Spanish National Radio “The Canaries at mid-day”, and several events including book signings.
The inaugural lecture (Tuesday 18th), with the title “Towards a map of Iberoamerican Vanguards” will be given by the poet and critic Juan Manel Bonet, the Director of the Cervantes Institute, and the closing lecture (Saturday 22nd) with the title “Those times were different” will be by the author Luis Goytisolo.
The Hispanoamerica Festival of Authors is an international event, promoted by the city council of Los Llanos de Aridane, by the Vargas Llosa chair, and by AC/E, /Spanish Cultural Action, with the patronage of the Cervantes Institute, the Foundation of the University of Guadalajara (Mexico) the programme “The Canaries Create” of the Canary Government, and Binter Airlines, with the collaboration of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, the La Palma Film Commission, the magazine El rapto de Europa , the Hacienda de Abajo Hotel, the business community of the island of La Palma represented in CIT Tedote, the Hacienda San Jorge Hotel, Ópticas Feliciano, the Ler Bookshops, Papiro books, the Publisher Ediciones La Palma, the Isla Bonita Association for Rural Tourism, the Ferreiro Jewellers, AGA¨P, SPAR supermarkets, epsoluciones, and Mabel Jewellers.
