Berna González Harbour

Invitado de Honor

She is a writer, literary journalist and columnist for El País. She received the Dashiell Hammett Award in 2020 for El sueño de la razón (Destino), the latest novel in a saga starring Commissioner Ruiz, the first book of which, Verano en rojo, was made into a movie of the same name.

She writes crime novels, she created Commissioner Ruiz and is one of the “new nine” of Spanish crime literature, according to Paco Camarasa. She won the Libreros de Cantabria 2018 and José Estrañi 2019 awards, and sits on several literary juries. She is also a political analyst and cultural collaborator. She is an assistant director at El País, where she has edited Babelia and been sent to numerous countries in conflict. She hosts the program on books “¿Qué estás leyendo?”, and is a regular guest on the Hoy por hoy talk show on Cadena Ser, and on La Hora de la 1, on Televisión Española (RTVE).

This year she published the novel El Pozo (Destino) and the non-fiction work Goya en el país de los garrotazos (Arpa). She has been translated into German.

Other activities involving the participant:

Naming Central America because Central America counts
“Evil never goes unpunished” The enigmas of the crime novel
Opening of the Carlos Fuentes Literary Lounge

Lorenzo Silva

Invitado de Honor

(Madrid, 1966) has a degree in Law from the Complutense University. He worked as an account auditor and lawyer. As a novelist, he was short-listed for the 1997 Nadal Award with La flaqueza del bolchevique and has received, among others, the Ojo Crítico Award in 1998 for El lejano país de los estanques, the Nadal Prize in 2000 for El alquimista impaciente, the Primavera Award in 2004 for Carta blanca and the Planeta Award in 2012 for La marca del meridiano. As the author of children's and young adult literature, he won the Destino Infantil Apel.les Mestres 2002-2003 Award for Laura y el corazón de las cosas and the La Brújula Award in 2013 for the novel Suad (co-written with Noemí Trujillo). In non-fiction, he won the 2010 Algaba Award for Sereno en el peligro.La aventura histórica de la Guardia Civil and he wrote a study on law in Kafka's work and two books on the old Spanish Morocco. He also co-authored a book on Spain's intervention in Iraq, Y al final, la guerra, and another on the Civil Guard's fight against ETA, Sangre, sudor y paz. Several of his 84 published books have been translated into 14 languages.

Elia Barceló

Invitado de Honor

(Elda, Alicante, 1957), “The Lady of a Thousand Worlds” (R. Ruiz, Babelia) and one of the most versatile writers in today's literary landscape in Spain, has a degree in Anglo-Germanic Philology (Valencia), Hispanic Philology (Alicante) and a PhD in Hispanic Literature (Innsbruck, Austria).

She has published over 90 stories in magazines and anthologies, as well as 33 novels. She is regarded as one of the most important science fiction and fantasy literature authors in Spanish, having won national and international awards, but she has works in many other genres. Her works have been translated into more than 20 languages.

She is also a multi-award-winning author of young-adult literature. Her novel El efecto Frankenstein (2019) received the award Premio Nacional in 2020.

She also writes general novels for adults and crime novels, both to great public and critical acclaim. These include:  The goldsmith's secret (2003), Disfraces terribles (2004), Las largas sombras (2009), El color del silencio (2017), El eco de la piel (2019), La noche de plata (2020, Alicante Noir Award, shortlisted for the Hammett Award at the Semana Negra de Gijón). In 2022, she began a series of “Mediterranean Noir” with Muerte en Santa Rita (2022), Amores que matan (2023) and La soga de cristal (2024), all of them published by Roca (Penguin Random House).

Her anthology of short stories La maga y otros cuentos crueles received the award Premio de Narrativa from the Valencian Literary Critics in 2016.

She is a columnist for El Correo and writes opinion articles every two weeks for El Diario.es.

Mil euros por tu vida was adapted for the cinema by Damir Lukacevic as Transfer (Germany, 2011), and has won several public and critics' awards. Her novel Las largas sombras has been adapted by Disney+ for a six-episode television series. There are also two highly developed audiovisual projects based on her texts.

Other activities involving the participant:

Science fiction written by women

Jesús Ruiz Mantilla

Invitado de Honor

(Santander, 1965) is a writer. Throughout his career, he has worked in fiction, non-fiction and poetry. He is the author of the novels Los ojos no ven; Preludio; Yo, Farinelli, el capón; Gordo (Sent Soví Award in 2005); Ahogada en llamas; La cáscara amarga; Hotel Transition (Fernando Quiñones Novel Award in 2015); El encuentro and Papel. In other genres, he has written Placer contra placer, Contar la música, and Divos, which reflect his journey as a music journalist over three decades for the newspaper El País, and Al día (Galaxia Gutenberg), a poetic experiment that blends a diary with poems drawn from everyday experiences reflected in the diary entries. For El País, he has spent most of his career in journalism in the Culture sections, or in the Babelia and El País Semanal supplements. He has also collaborated with the “The Window” and “Today” radio programs on Cadena Ser.

He is a professor in the CEU's Master's in Cultural Journalism, at the El País school, and he has taught university courses in Spain, Latin America and the United States. As a cultural manager, he is the artistic director of the Eñe festivals in Madrid and Málaga; of the Festival Internacional de Literatura en Español (FILE) in Extremadura and Murcia, and in Fronteras in Valencia, where he mixes musicians with writers. In addition, he is part of the team behind Creadores, a documentary series conceived by Alberto Anaut for La Fábrica, the leading cultural management company in Spain, of which he is a member of the executive team. The series is produced by Amazon, Radio Televisión Española (RTVE), and the Fundación La Caixa, and features ten-hour interviews with various artists from the Spanish-speaking world.

Other activities involving the participant:

With the past at our heels
Once upon a time was love
Crossroads. Humor, illustration and literature