The Wild Detectives is excited to announce the full program lineup for the fifth annual Hay Forum Dallas, an event collaboration with the Hay Festival—one of the largest cultural festivals celebrated around the world.

With its most ambitious line up to date, this year’s Hay Forum Festival will include nine authors from six different countries, three days of panels and book presentations, and will conclude with live music and DJ sets each night of the festival.

The main festival programming will take place between Saturday, September 3 and Sunday, September 4 at the Wild Detectives.

In addition to previously announced programming, the Hay Forum will host several panels touching on literature, translation, activism, and journalism, including:

• A timely session entitled Centering Margins: Social Conflicts in Latin America will follow Mexican linguist rights activist and writer Yasnaya Elena, Peruvian journalist and activist Joseph Zarate (Wars of Interior, Granta 2021), and Argentina writer Dolores Reyes (Eartheater, HarperCollins 2021), for discussion exploring the complexities of language, cultural homogenization, environmental conflicts, and gender violence within their respective homelands.
• Daring to Live in Democracy: Free Speech in Cuba will feature a book presentation with Cuban journalist and writer Carlos Manuel Alvarez. Alvarez will be presenting his recent book The Tribe (Graywolf Press, 2022). Blending reportage, narrative nonfiction, and novelistic techniques, this collection chronicles a vibrant portrait of Cuba during a particular turbulent period of history, including the author’s own account of the San Isidro Movement and his experience of being detained and uncommunicated during the 2021 Cuban protest.
• Spoken Identities: Crafting Characters through Exile and Multicultualism will feature NY Times Writer to Watch, Zain Khalid author of Brother Alive (Grove, 2022), English-Spanish translator and Coffee House Press senior editor Lizzie Davis, and Peruvian novelist Jeremias Gamboa (Animales luminoso, Penguin 2021) for a discussion on the challenges and opportunities of crafting narratives that pay homage to different countries, languages, and ideas.
• Addressing the current climate crisis and potential for disaster capitalism, Spanish journalist and researcher Marta Peirano will join Sarah Hepola, author of best-selling memoir Blackout, (Grand Central Publishing, 2016) in Dangers of the Internet: A Cautionary Anti-Apocalyptic Tale and will feature a book presentation and discussion of Peirano’s recent release Contra El Futuro (Debate, 2022). Panelists will discuss the relationship between technology and power and what action strategies can be utilized to deal with the acceleration of climate feudalism and mass surveillance.
• A special panel and musical performance from celebrated Mexican cumbia singer Amandititita. She will be in conversation with author Carlos Velazquez (The Cowboy Bible and Other Stories, Restless 2008), and will explore the rise of styles such as cumbia and traditional Latin rhythms, and its influence in current music trends in the US.

Additionally, Festival attendees can look out programs in collaboration with Southern Methodist University and University of Dallas during September 6 and 7.

For information regarding sponsorships or publicity outreach, please contact: cristina@thewilddetectives.com