Angelina Muñiz-Huberman

(Hyères, 1936) is a poet, narrator, essayist and translator.

She is a national emeritus creator, has a PhD in Literature and has taught for 54 years at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

She belongs to the second generation of Spanish writers in exile, called Hispanomexicanos or Generación Neptantla.

She has received national and international awards and distinctions: National Science and Arts Award; Fellow of the Mexican Academy of Language and corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Language; Doctorate Honoris Causa from the National Autonomous University of Mexico; Order of Isabel la Católica; Woman of Valor Award; in addition to the Magda Donato, Xavier Villaurrutia, Fuentes Mares, Manuel Levinsky, and other awards.

She was the first recipient of the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz International Novel Prize at the Guadalajara International Book Fair in 1993 for Enchanted Dulcinea.

Her favorite themes include Sephardic mysticism and the Spanish exile of 1939. Her works have been translated into several languages and included in numerous anthologies.

Her style is a ground-breaking in terms of genres, punctuation, blank spaces and other oddities. It is not free from irony and humor.

She created the genre of pseudomemories with her works Castillos en la tierra, Molinos sin viento and Hacia Malinalco.

She has published over 60 books, including: Morada interior, considered the first novel in neohistoric Mexican literature; A Mystical Journey; La lengua florida, antología sefardí; La guerra del unicornio; Areúsa en los conciertos; La burladora de Toledo; Rompeolas, poesía reunida; El siglo del desencanto; Los esperandos. Piratas judeoportugueses... y yo; Arrhythmias; El último faro; Las vestiduras del palacio; Cartas a una ardilla y otros especímenes.

Her works have been published by Fondo de Cultura Económica, Joaquín Mortiz, Tusquets, Bonilla y Artigas, Renacimiento (Seville), Sefarad (Madrid), Ménades (Madrid), Huerga y Fierro (Madrid), and other publishers.

María Teresa Álvarez Aub

Invitado de Honor

Descendant of Spanish refugees from San Sebastián and Valencia, I was born in Mexico City when both families settled here, where my parents formed our family.

I completed my early schooling at the Lycée Français, near our house and my grandparents Max and Peua’s house. I finished my studies in Havana, where I started high school. There, my father, Federico Alvarez Arregui, was hired by the Universidad de La Habana.

My parents had always considered the idea of returning to Spain, and they made the move while the dictator was still alive.

In Madrid, I finished high school and studied Photography.

My parents and my brother returned to Mexico in the early 80s. I stayed in Madrid, where I worked as a photographer and proofreader until I joined the Fondo de Cultura Económica as a production department assistant. Years later, with Arturo Azuela, I also took on the role of executive secretary.

In recent years, I have held administrative positions in Valencia, where I currently live, and since 2013, I have continued the important work that my mother, Elena Aub, started at the helm of what would become the Max Aub Foundation, which I currently preside over.

Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano

(Mexico City, 1934) studied civil engineering at UNAM. Between 1959 and 1976, he coordinated studies on the Balsas River Basin, served as the resident engineer for the construction of the "José María Morelos" dam (La Villita) on the Balsas River, was the deputy director of the Lázaro Cárdenas-Las Truchas steelworks, and managed the Lázaro Cárdenas City Trust. In 1976, he was elected senator representing Michoacán for the 1976-1982 term.

In 1976, he was appointed Undersecretary for Forests and Wildlife, a position he held until 1980. He served as governor of Michoacán from 1980 to 1986. Later that year, he joined Democratic Current, an internal dissident group within the PRI, and in 1988, he ran for president, representing the coalition of political parties and organizations known as the National Democratic Front. In 1989, he co-founded the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), which he chaired until 1993, and he was the party's presidential candidate in 1994 and 2000. From 1997 to 1999, he served as the Head of Government of Mexico City, the first to be elected by popular vote. He resigned from the PRD in 2014. He currently  presides over the Lázaro Cárdenas and Amalia Solórzano Center, A.C.

 He has written, among other books, Nuestra lucha apenas comienza (1988), El proyecto nacional de la Revolución Mexicana (1990), La esperanza en marcha. Ideario político (1998), Palabras de Cárdenas (1999, Grijalbo), Sobre mis pasos (2010, Aguilar), Cárdenas por Cárdenas (2016, Debate) and Por una democracia progresista. Debatir el presente para un mejor futuro (2021, Penguin Random House).

Jordi Soler

Born in 1963 in La Portuguesa, a community of Catalan Republican exiles who founded a coffee plantation in the jungle of Veracruz, Mexico. La Portuguesa, a primitive enclave in the jungle, where the forces of nature devour each other, is the literary territory where a substantial part of its work is based.

He has written 14 novels, translated into several languages: Bocafloja (1994), La corsaria (1996), Nueve Aquitania (1999), La mujer que tenía los pies feos (2001), Los rojos de ultramar (2004), La última hora del último día (2007), La fiesta del oso (2009), Diles que son cadáveres (2011), Restos humanos (2013), Ese príncipe que fui (2015), El cuerpo eléctrico (2017), Usos rudimentarios de la selva (2018), Los hijos del volcán (2022), En el reino del toro sagrado (2024).

His novels have garnered various distinction, including the Prix Littéraire des Jeunes Européens (2012) and the Prix Jean-Morer (2020), in France; the Iberoamericano AsiCom-University of Oviedo Award (2014) in Spain, and the Poeta de América Carlos Pellicer Cámara Award (2021) in Mexico.

He is also the author of two poetry books and four non-fiction books: Ensayos bárbaros (2015), Mapa secreto del bosque (2019), La orilla celeste del agua (2021) and La resquebrajadura (2023).

Between 2000 and 2003, he was the cultural attaché at the Mexican Embassy in Dublin. He writes for the Mexican newspaper Milenio and the Spanish newspaper El País. He lives in Barcelona, the city his family left after the Spanish Civil War, and he is a Knight of the Irish Order of Finnegans.

Other activities involving the participant:

Once upon a time was love
Journeys. Silent time. Tribute to Luis Martín-Santos

Marisol Schulz Manaut

Marisol Schulz Manaut es editora, comentarista, ponente, periodista cultural y experta en el mundo literario y editorial. Ha recibido múltiples reconocimientos por su trayectoria de promoción de la lectura, así como por apostar por el futuro de los libros y el español. 

Desde hace once años dirige la Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara, considerada la más importante en español y una de las más relevantes del mundo. Durante su gestión, la FIL Guadalajara ha recibido diversos reconocimientos como el prestigiado Premio Princesa de Asturias en el área de Comunicación y Humanidades, conjuntamente con el Hay Festival; la condecoración con la Orden de Rio Branco, de Brasil, y recientemente la Presea Sor Juana, galardón que otorga la Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, en México.

También dirige la Feria del Libro en Español y Festival Literario de Los Ángeles, un ambicioso programa de difusión y fomento del libro y la lectura en español en Estados Unidos, fundado en 2011.  

Durante más de cuatro décadas Marisol Schulz se ha enfocado en las labores vinculadas al libro y la lectura, estando al frente de las áreas editoriales en diferentes entidades públicas y privadas, como la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México y el Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social. Fue directora editorial de Plaza y Janés México y durante 17 años trabajó en Grupo Santillana, primero como editora ejecutiva y posteriormente como directora en México de los sellos Taurus y Alfaguara. Tuvo a su cargo la edición de grandes escritores iberoamericanos como Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa, José Saramago, Arturo Pérez Reverte, Elena Poniatowska, Augusto Monterroso, Sergio Ramírez, Carmen Boullosa, Alberto Ruy Sánchez y Xavier Velasco, por mencionar algunos. 

En 2013 la edición mexicana de la revista Forbes la reconoció como una de las 50 mujeres más poderosas de México. En 2016 y 2020 la revista Quién la nombró una de las “50 personas que mueven a México”. Asimismo, en 2021 recibió el Premio Nacional Juan Pablos al Mérito Editorial, un reconocimiento que otorga anualmente la Cámara Nacional de la Industria Editorial Mexicana.

Other activities involving the participant:

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz award ceremony
Tribute
Tribute to Iñaki Ábalos
Opening Ceremony

Juan Luis Bonilla

Invitado de Honor

Bookseller and editor. He has worked mainly on marketing and publishing university textbooks. He has developed several academic library projects for institutions like UNAM, Tec in Monterrey and the Universidad de las Américas, and he has set up his own points of sale.

Since 2008, he has directed the editorial project Bonilla Artigas Editores, dedicated to publishing knowledge created in Mexico and which has over six hundred titles in its catalog. In 2015, he opened the Bon Art firm for literary books. Since April 2023, he has been the Chairman of the Ateneo Español in Mexico.