Virginia Mendoza

Invitado de Honor

(Valdepeñas, 1987) has a degree in Journalism and Social and Cultural Anthropology from the Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche. For years, she has been a freelance journalist, writing for media outlets in Spain, Latin America, Italy and Portugal. They include Gatopardo, Verne (El País), Papel (El Mundo), Viajes de National Geographic, Altaïr, Jot Down, L’Integrale and National Geographic Portugal. After living in several places in Spain, as well as in Armenia and Wales, she currently resides in a village in Teruel, where she is still learning about Pre-historic Anthropology and writes about anthropology for Muy Interesante and Muy Interesante Preguntas y Respuestas.

She has published books on rootedness, uprooting, and displacement, in which she merges narrative journalism and rural anthropology, such as Quién te cerrará los ojos.Historias de arraigo y soledad en la España rural (2017, Libros del KO), Heridas del viento. Crónicas armenias (2018, La línea del horizonte; to be published soon in Armenian by Actual Art) and Detendrán mi río.Desarraigo y memoria en un rincón de la España sumergida (2021, Libros del KO), a transmedia project on people displaced by the construction of dams in Spain that continues with an online map/report. She also wrote books on Jane Goodall (translated into Italian, French and Portuguese) and Alexandra David-Néel (translated into Italian) from the RBA's Great Women collection. She co-authored (h)amor2 (2015, Continta me tienes), Cien años del genocidio armenio: un siglo de silencio (2016, e-DitARX) and Juegos reunidos rurales, illustrated by Narcís RE (2022, Temas de Hoy). Her latest book, La sed.Una historia antropológica (y personal) de la vida en tierras de lluvia escasa (2024, Debate), will be translated into English, German, Italian, Dutch and Portuguese.

In 2019, she won the Premio Manuel Iradier a la Comunicación, presented by the Sociedad Geográfica La Exploradora.

María Sánchez

Invitado de Honor

Veterinarian and writer. She works with endangered native breeds, advocating for other forms of production and husbandry, such as agroecology, grazing and extensive rearing. She regularly appears in the media to discuss literature, feminism, extensive rearing, food and culture, and rural topics.

She is the author of the poem collections Cuaderno de campo and Fuego la sed, and of the books Tierra de mujeres: una mirada íntima y familiar al mundo rural, and Almáciga. Her books have been translated into several languages.

She has received different awards, including the INJUVE Premio Nacional de Juventud de Cultura, for contributing, through her poetry, "to raising awareness in a model and innovative way of the need to maintain rural life"; the 2023 Andalusia Medal for Environmental Merit, and the 44th Julio Camba Afundación International Journalism Award. 

Other activities involving the participant:

Written with ink and chlorophyll

Gabi Martínez

Invitado de Honor

She is a writer. His work, translated in 10 countries and adapted to various narrative formats, has received numerous awards and acknowledgements, especially his non-fiction books, In the land of giants, Un cambio de verdad, En la Barrera, Naturalmente urbano, Lagarta and the novels Sudd, Voy and Las defensas. Delta was chosen the best book of 2023 by the literary magazine WMagazín.

Protagonist of the episode Colombian massif in the documentary series Finding Encanto, awarded a Dolphin at the Cannes Festival.

He is the director of the Liternatura Festival, a founding member of the Caravana Negra and Lagarta Fernández associations, of the Urban and Territorial Ecology Foundation, and co-director of the project “Invisible Animals”.

Other activities involving the participant:

The Pleasure of Reading Gala
Written with ink and chlorophyll

Inés Martín Rodrigo

Invitado de Honor

(Madrid, 1983) is a writer and journalist. In 2022, she won the Nadal Prize with the novel Las formas del querer, which also received the Premio de la Crítica de Madrid. She is also the author of the biographical fiction Azules son las horas (2016), the anthology of interviews with women writers Una habitación compartida (2020), the children's story Giselle (2020), and the essay Una homosexualidad propia (2023).

In 2019, she was included in the “10 de 30” program of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), which every year recognizes the best Spanish writers under 40 years old. For 14 years she worked for the Culture section of the ABC newspaper and in June 2022, she joined the Prensa Ibérica group, where she is on the team of the literary supplement abril and writes opinion pieces.

Other activities involving the participant:

In no man's land: the place of war
Free time with a tourist personality
Journeys. Tribute to Carmen Martín Gaite
Journeys. Tribute to Ana María Matute