Najat El Hachmi

Invitado de Honor

Najat El Hachmi was born in Nador (Morocco) in 1979 and moved to Spain when she was eight years old. She has a degree in Arab Studies from the University of Barcelona.
Among her published works, one should mention her novels L’últim patriarca (Planeta, 2008), a debut that won the Ramon Llull Prize and the Prix Ulysse, La filla estrangera (Edicions 62- Destino, 2015 – winner of the Sant Joan Novel Award and the Barcelona City Award) and Mare de llet i de mel, (Edicions 62, 2018). All of them have been widely translated.
After the publication on the celebrated Feminist essay, Sempre han parlat per nosaltres (Edicions 62-Destino, 2019), her latest published work is the novel Dilluns ens estimaran (Edicions 62, Destino, 2021) that received the prestigious Nadal Novel Award 2021.

Other activities involving the participant:

The Pleasure of Reading Gala

Brenda Navarro

She was part of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in 2023. Her debut novel, Casas vacías (2018), won the Premio Tigre Juan and the Pen Translation Award in the United Kingdom. Her second novel, Ceniza en la boca (2022), received the Premio Cálamo, the Premio de la Asociación de Librerías de Madrid, the Premio Todos tus Libros, and the Premio San Clemente as the best book of 2022, in addition to being a finalist at the Bienal Vargas Llosa 2022.

She has worked as an editor and screenwriter and teaches creative writing workshops both nationally and internationally, including at the City University of New York (CUNY), New York University (NYU), the University of Iowa (UI), and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She has been invited to give lectures at Harvard, Brown, Wesleyan, Iowa, and New York universities. Additionally, she has contributed to media outlets such as El País, Pikara Magazine, La Marea, El Salto, Milenio, Tierra Adentro, among others.

In 2021, she served as the General Coordinator for the diploma course Encuentros y Desencuentros de la lengua española y de las literaturas hispánicas, organized by the Cátedra Extraordinaria Carlos Fuentes de Literatura Hispanoamericana and the Centro de Estudios Mexicanos en España (CEM-España). This course brought together over two dozen Ibero-American speakers to discuss Spanish-language literature. She also coordinated the project “No hay lugar en este país” (2021) with the Centro de Análisis e Investigación Fundar México, which included a literary workshop that resulted in the publication of a book in 2022.

Other activities involving the participant:

A one-way ticket
Inaugural Talk: The Recovery of the Lost Home… That Perhaps We Don’t Want to Recover

Patricio Pron

Invitado de Honor

Pron is the author of six books of stories, including El mundo sin las personas que lo afean y lo arruinan (2010), La vida interior de las plantas de interior (2013), Lo que está y no se usa nos fulminará (2018) y Trayéndolo todo de regreso a casa (2021);  and of seven novels, including El comienzo de la primavera (2008), My fathers' ghost is climbing in the rain (2011), Nosotros caminamos en sueños (2014), Don't shed your tears for anyone who lives on these streets (2016) y Mañana tendremos otros nombres (2019), as well as the essays El libro tachado: prácticas de la negación y del silencio en la crisis de la literatura (2014) and No, no pienses en un conejo blanco: literatura, dinero, tiempo, influencia, falsificación, crítica, futuro (2022), and of the dream diary Traumbuch (2022).

His work has been recognized on numerous occasions (including with the Juan Rulfo, Cálamo and Alfaguara awards), regularly included in anthologies and translated into 12 languages; these include German, English, French, Norwegian, Dutch, Chinese, Italian and Portuguese. In 2010, the English magazine Granta selected him as one of the 22 best writers in Spanish of his generation. More recently, he was the Director's Guest at the Civitella Ranieri residence for artists, and a guest lecturer at the Literature Department of the University of Cologne.

Pron has a PhD in Romance Philology from Georg-August University in Göttingen. He lives in Madrid with his wife and two cats. In 2023, he published La naturaleza secreta de las cosas de este mundo with the Anagram publishing house.

Other activities involving the participant:

New masculinities: deconstructing to build better men?
The man who defeated artificial intelligence

Marta Fernández

Invitado de Honor

Journalist and writer who studied Journalism at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. She began her career at Diario 16 and Televisión Española (TVE). In 1997, she first appeared on camera on Telemadrid. Two years later, she became part of the founding team of CNN+. She remained with the news channel until 2007. That year, she joined Mediaset to take over the midday news program. She stayed with the Italian group until 2016 as a presenter for Informativos Telecinco and Noticias Cuatro, programs focused on political current affairs and special reports.

A regular contributor to the cultural magazine Jot Down and GQ, she joined El País in 2017.She later collaborated with Vanity Fair, where she directed and presented the book podcast "Nota al pie."Since 2013, she has participated in La Ventana on Cadena SER, and starting this season, she has her own segment on the program "Academia de saberes inútiles." In recent years, she has realized her dream of interviewing the writers she admires most and lending her voice to audiobooks.

She has published a novel, Te regalaré el mundo, and No te enamores de cobardes, a journey through the myths of cinema and literature. Her latest book is a historical essay on imposture: La mentira, Historia de impostores y engañados. However, the literary activity she dedicates the most energy to is being an advocate for Thomas Pynchon in Spain.

Other activities involving the participant:

Encounter with the strange: vibrations, ghosts, homes and insects
Portrait of a time with family
The mystery of the imagination that creates (and destroys) worlds
"I'm here for you, no matter what." Friendship
Personal paradises
Speak, wish
Crossroads. Music, poetry and literature