2019 Guests

Elvira Lindo

Aged just nineteen, she began working as an actress, presenter and scriptwriter on Spanish National Radio. Indeed, her popular character Manolito Gafotas emerged out of this radio scripts. Her work, mainly published by Seix Barral, includes novels such as ‘Something More Unexpected than Death’, ‘What I Have Left to Live’ and ‘Places I Don’t Want to Share with Anyone’; the diary ‘Sleepless Nights’ and her chronicles for El País in ‘Don de Gentes’ and ‘Tinto de verano’. Her latest book is ‘30 Ways to Doff your Hat’. She was awarded the National Prize for Children´s and Young People´s Literature, the Biblioteca Prize for ‘A Word from You’ and the International Journalism Prize in 2015. She has also written several film scripts and is a regular collaborator in the newspaper El País.

elviralindo.com

Fernando Marías

(Bilbao, 1958) He is a novelist, scriptwriter and publisher. With more than thirty published books, he has received numerous awards, notably including the 2001 Nadal Prize for ‘El niño de los coroneles’; the 2005 Ateneo de Sevilla Prize for ‘El mundo se acaba todos los días’; the 2005 Dulce Chacón Narrative Prize for ‘Invasor’; the 2006 National Prize for Children and Young People´s Literature for ‘Cielo Abajo’; the 2010 Primavera Prize for his novel ‘Todo el amor y casi toda la muerte’ and the 2015 Biblioteca Breve Prize for ‘La isla del padre’. Fernando Marías is also the creator of the project Hijos de Mary Shelley (Children of Mary Shelley), a platform that produces literature, music, performances and theatrical monologues.

fernandomarias.com

Enrique Redel

He was born in Madrid in 1971. In 2004 he founded the publisher Funambulista, which he left in 2007 in order to set up the publisher Impedimenta, alongside his wife, Pilar Adón. In 2008 the publishing company won the National Prize for Best Cultural Publishing Work, along side the other publishers of the Contexto group. His catalogue proposes a dialogue between the old and the new with authors such as Mircea Cărtărescu, Kingsley Amis, Iris Murdoch, Siegfried Lenz, Dubravka Ugrešić, David Lodge, Eduardo Berti, Jon Bilbao and Penelope Fitzgerald. His works have been recognised on several occasions with prizes such as the Libreter prize and the Euskadi de Plata award. He currently lives and works in Madrid.

impedimenta.es

Sabina Urraca

Basque by birth, but raised in Tenerife, she has lived in Madrid for fifteen years. She has worked as an insurance salesperson, waitress, scriptwriter, reporter, television and advertising creative, presenter and marijuana trimmer. She collaborates as a journalist with the newspaper El País, in magazines such as Vice, Tribus Ocultas, El Estado Mental and Cinemanía, and on the programme ‘Hoy por hoy’ on Cadena SER radio station. She is also the author of the novel ‘Las niñas prodigio’ (Wonder Girls), published by Fulgencio Pimentel in 2017, and she participated in the anthology ‘La errabunda (Primer tratado ibérico de deambulología heterodoxa)’ (The Wanderer; First Iberian Treatise on Heterodox Walking), published by Lindo & Espinosa in 2018.

sabinaurraca.com

Carolina Ontivero

Holder of a degree in Journalism, Advertising and Public Relations from the University of the Basque Country. She has been part of the organisation of Ja! Bilbao since its first edition in 2010, when the festival was still called La Risa de Bilbao. She is mainly in charge of programming and communication and is assistant manager. She values humour above all else. However, her bedside table is full of books about wars and concentration camps.

Juan Bas

(Bilbao, 1959). He worked as a scriptwriter on comics (El Víbora, Cimoc…) and television series (Farmacia de guardia, Turno de oficio…). Among other works, he has published the volumes of stories ‘Páginas ocultas de la historia’, written with Fernando Marías, and ´La taberna de los 3 monos´. The novels ‘El oro de los carlistas’, ‘Alacranes en su tinta’, ‘La cuenta atrás’, ‘Voracidad’, Basque Prize for Literature, ‘Ostras para Dimitri’, ‘Pájaros quemados’ and ‘El refugio de los canallas’. The unclassifiable works ‘Tratado sobre la resaca’ and ‘La resaca del amor’, and the compilation of articles ‘El número de tontos’. His work has been translated into French, German, Italian, Russian, Bulgarian, Norwegian and Basque. He is an opinion columnist for El Correo. In 2010 he came up with the idea of the Ja! Bilbao Festival, and he directs it.

www.juanbas.es

Marta Flich

She is an economist, actress and comedian. Having studied Economics, she worked in a bank for a few years until, seeking “a little creativity”, she made the move into acting. As an actress she has participated in several works of theatre, television series and feature films, but above all she is known for her work as a disseminator of economics and current politics from a scathing perspective packed with humour. With Grijalbo she has recently published ’Necronomía: El manual para entender la economía perversa’ (Necroeconomics: Manual for understanding the perverse economy). She has her own show on Onda Cero, ‘Salsa Flich’, and collaborates on television programmes such as ‘Ese programa del que usted me habla’ (That programme you talk to me about), ‘Late Motiv’ and ‘Todo es mentira’ (Everything is a Lie), presented by Risto Mejide.

Maruja Torres

She began her journalism career at a very young age, collaborating on publications such as Fotograms and the comical magazines Por Favor and El Papus. A leading writer for decades in El País newspaper, she has worked across every genre of journalism, from social commentary and film reviews to war reporting. She is also the author of several books, including the comic novels ‘Desperately Seeking Julio’ and ‘Ceguera de amor’ (Blind with Love). With ‘Mientras vivimos’ (While we are Alive), the novel that earned her the Planeta Prize in 2000, she established herself as one of the leading novelists of our time. In 2006, she received the Gold Medal of Fine Arts for her contribution to culture.

Ana Morgade

A comic actress and presenter, she has participated in several comedy television programmes. She has been part of Andreu Buenafuente´s team; she has presented the satirical news show ‘Estas no son las noticias’ (This is not the news) alongside Quequé, and with Sílvia April ‘Las noticias de las 2’ (The news on 2); she stood out as a presenter on the last season of ‘El Club de la Comedia’ (The Comedy Club) and surprised the public with her performances on the fourth edition of ‘Tu cara me suena’ (I know your face). She currently collaborates on ‘El hormiguero’ (The Anthill) and has just announced that she will not appear again on ‘Zapping’, where she had participated since 2013. She also participates in the comedy section on the ‘A vivir’ programme on Cadena Ser and she has appeared in films such as ‘Bajo el mismo techo’ (Under the Same Roof) and ‘Con el culo al aire’ (Stranded).

Andrei Kurkov

(Leningrad, 1961). He began to write at the age of seven when two of his three hamsters died and he decided to dedicate a poem about loneliness to the survivor. In that era, as a result of his Soviet education, he still dedicated texts to Lenin. He worked as a Japanese translator for the KGB and was a prison warden in Odessa, where he wrote his first children´s works. He is the author of twenty novels, several children´s books and he has created numerous documentaries, his work has been translated into thirty languages. An expert on the post-Soviet world, he comments on reality in Ukraine for media outlets around the world. ‘Death and the Penguin’, an international best seller reissued by Blackie Books in 2018, mixes black humour and the post-Soviet milieu. So too does ‘The Gardener from Ochakov’, the second book by Kurkov, recently published by the same publisher.

Iban Zaldua

(San Sebastian, 1966) is a writer and history teacher at the University of the Basque Country. His works notably include the books of stories ‘Gezurrak, gezurrak, gezurrak’ (2000; ‘Lies, lies, lies’, 2006), ‘La isla de los antropólogos y otros relatos’ (The Anthropologists’ Island and Other Short Stories) and ‘Etorkizuna’ (Euskadi Literature Prize 2006; ’Future’). He has also published the novels ‘Si Sabino viviría’ (If Sabino Would Live) and ‘Euskaldun guztion aberria’ (2008, The Homeland of All the Basques, 2009). Among his essays, it is worth highlighting ‘Ese idioma raro y poderoso. Once decisiones cruciales que un escritor vasco está obligado a tomar’ (This Strange and Powerful Language: Eleven Crucial Decisions a Basque Writer Is Obliged to Face) (Euskadi Essay Prize 2013). His latest book is ‘Sekula kontatu behar ez nizkizun gauzak’ (‘As if everything had happened’, Galaxia Gutenberg, 2018).

Manuel Vilas

He is a poet and writer. His books of poetry notably include ‘Resurección’ (Resurrection) (XV Jaime Gil de Biedma Prize), ‘Calor’ (Heat) (VI Fray Luis de León `Prize), ‘Gran Vilas’ (The Great Vilas) (XXXIII City of Melilla Prize) and ‘El hundimiento’ (The Sinking) (XVII Generation of ’27 International Poetry Prize). He is the author of the novels ‘España’, (Spain) ‘Aire Nuestro’ (Our Air) (Cálamo Prize); ‘Los inmortales’ (The Immortals) and ‘El luminoso regalo’ (The Luminous Gift), published by Alfaguara. He has also written books
of stories such as ‘Zeta’ (Zed) and ‘Setecientos millones de rinocerontes’ (Seven Hundred Million Rhinos), the chronicle ‘Lou Reed era español’ (Lou Reed was Spanish) and the autobiography ‘América’ (America). ‘Ordesa’ (Alfaguara, 2018) is his latest book, it is his most personal and has triumphed with both the general public and critics alike. He regularly writes in the press and collaborates on ‘A vivir’ on Cadena Ser radio station.

Iván Repila

(Bilbao, 1978) is a writer, publisher and cultural manager. He is the author of the novels:‘Una comedia canalla’ (A Rogue Comedy) (Libros del Silencio, 2012); ‘The Boy Who Stole Attila´s Horse’ (Libros del Silencio, 2013; Seix Barral 2017), which has been translated into several languages; ‘Prólogo para una guerra’ (Prelude for a War) (Seix Barral, 2017) and ‘El aliado’ (The Ally) (Seix Barral, 2019), as well as the stories published in the newspaper El Correo and in the anthologies ‘El Quijote a través del espejo’ (Don Quixote Through the Looking Glass), ‘Historias de San Mamés’ (Stories from the San Mamés) and ‘Ilustrofobia’.
He also teaches literature in reading and creative writing workshops, he has a regular column in the newspaper Bilbao and is the co-founder of Masmédula Ediciones, a publisher specialising in poetry.

Antonio Muñoz Molina

He is one of the most outstanding Spanish writers and has been a member of the Royal Spanish Academy since 1995. His extensive oeuvre notably includes ‘Beatus Ille’, ‘Winter in Lisbon’, ‘Prince of Shadows’, ‘The Polish Rider’, ‘Plenilunio’ (Full Moon), ‘Sepharad’ and ‘In the Night of Time’, all published by Seix Barral. He is a regular collaborator in the press, and has compiled his articles in volumes such as ‘El Robinson urbano’ (The Urban Robinson) and ‘La vida por delante’ (The Life Ahead). Among others, he has received the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature, the National Literature Prize on two occasions, the Critics Prize, the Planeta Prize, the Liber Prize, the Jean Monnet Prize of European Literature, the Prix Méditerranée Étranger, the Jerusalem Prize and Qué Leer Prize, awarded by readers. He lives between Madrid and Lisbon and is married to the writer Elvira Lindo.

antoniomuñozmolina.es

David Trueba

He studied journalism, a profession he has never left. On television he has directed programs such as ‘El peor programa de la semana’ (The Worst Programme of the Week) and the series ‘¿Qué fue de Jorge Sanz?’ (What became of Jorge Sanz?). His film career, aside from scripts for other directors such as ‘The Worst Years of Our Life’ and ‘The Girl of Your Dreams’, runs between his successful debut with ‘The Good Life’ in 1996 and ‘Living Is Easy with Eyes Closed’, which obtained six Goya Awards, including Best Film. His trajectory as a novelist has always been linked to the publisher Anagrama. His novels notably include ‘Learning to Lose’ (Critics Prize, best book of the year according to El Cultural supplement of El Mundo and finalist for the Prix Médicis in France). ‘Blitz’ and ‘Tierra de campos’ (Land of Fields) are his latest novels.

davidtrueba.com

Dani de Pablos

Festival photographer since the first edition. In 2003 he created the studio FOTOGRAFIA2 with the photographer David Herranz.