2018 Guests

Carlos Areces

He was born in Madrid in 1976. He studied Fine Arts in Cuenca, where he met Ernesto Sevilla, through whom he got involved in a project that revolutionised television comedy: ‘La hora Chanante’ and subsequently ’Muchachada Nui’ and ‘Museo Coconut’. In 2008 he was part of the cast of the Álex de la Iglesia film ‘Plutón B.R.B. Nero’. Since then, he has been a regular actor of this director (‘Balada triste de trompeta’, ‘Las brujas de Zugarramurdi’, ‘Mi gran noche’) and he has appeared in many other Spanish comedies (Torrente 4 and 5, ‘Los amantes pasajeros’, ‘Negociador’). Areces is also a cartoonist and is part of the “subnorpop” music group Ojete Calor.

Juan Carlos Ortega

He began working at RNE with Javier Sardá at the age of 18; since then he has been a regular collaborator on radio and television, it is worth highlighting his participation on El lobo estepario with Jesús Quintero, on La radio de Julia with Julia Otero and La ventana with Gemma Nierga, and his interventions on television shows Crónicas Marcianas and Channel 4, with Ana García Siñeriz and Boris Izaguirre. He currently collaborates with Pepa Fernández on the RNE program No es un día cualquiera and with Andreu Buenafuente on Late Motiv on Movistar+. He also has a slot on Cadena Ser, Las noches de Ortega. In 2016 he was awarded the Premio Ondas for his professional trajectory.

Jacinto Antón

(Barcelona, 1957) has spent his entire professional life at the Culture section of the daily newspaper El País, where he has specialised in a wide array of subjects such as archaeology, Egyptology, theatre and history. In 2009 he received the National Prize for Cultural Journalism awarded by the Ministry of Culture. On TVE (Spanish TV) he produced the program ‘El reportero de la historia’ (The reporter of history) and on La Ser he stars in the radio program ‘El antropólogo inocente’ (The innocent anthropologist) and he has a slot on the radio show ‘A vivir que son dos días’ of Javier del Pino, on Cadena SER. He has published the books ‘Pilotos, caimanes y otras aventuras extraordinarias’ and ‘Héroes, aventureros y cobardes’ with RBA.

Javier del Pino

(Madrid, 1964) is a journalist and holds a degree in English philology. He began working for Cadena SER in 1988. After participating in news shows such as “Hora 25”, he held the role of Washington correspondent for fifteen years. Since 2012 he has presented and presented “A vivir que son dos días”, the leading weekend morning show in Spain, and a program where humour plays a key role. He has been awarded the Antena de Oro and Ondas prizes among others.

Javier Gomá

Born in Bilbao in 1965, he has been the director of the Fundación Juan March since 2003. He won the National Essay Award in 2004 for his first book, ‘Imitación y experiencia’, which – together with ‘Aquiles en el gineceo’ and ‘Ejemplaridad pública’ (Taurus, 2009) – make up a trilogy dedicated to the experience of life. He has gathered his essays and lectures in ‘Ingenuidad aprendida’ and ‘Todo a mil’. Every three weeks, he publishes a philosophical mini-essay in the El Pais supplement. He writes regularly in newspapers, magazines and supplements and is a contributor to Spain’s National Radio (RNE). He is patron of the Teatro Real. In 2012 the magazine Foreign Policy (in Spanish) included him in the list of the fifty best and most influential Latin American intellectuals.

Mercedes Cebrián

She was born in Madrid in 1971. She is the author of the book of short stories and poems ‘El malestar al alcance de todos’ and of the book of poems ‘Mercado Común’, both published by Caballo de Troya; as well the two nouvelles included in ´La nueva taxidermia´ and the novel ´El genuino sabor´, both published by Literatura Random House. Cebrián is a regular contributor to the newspapers El País, La Vanguardia and Público, and in several cultural magazines such as Eñe, Gatopardo, Revista de Occidente and The Massachusetts Review. She has translated Georges Perec and Alan Sillitoe into Spanish. Mercedes Cebrián is the guest editor of the publisher Caballo de Troya in 2018.

mercedescebrian.com

Luz Sánchez-Mellado

She has written in the newspaper El País since the age of 19. For two decades she has worked for El País Semanal and in 2009 she made her debut as a columnist in the summer magazine of this publication. In the section ‘Portera de día´ (Day Porter), she dissected social and political affairs each week with an acerbic and irreverent vision. She currently collaborates with Spanish Television, the magazine Harper´s Bazaar and the program La Ventana on Cadena SER. She has written the Thursday column on the last page of El País since 2015 and, since 2017 she has taken charge of the interview on the last page of the Sunday edition of this newspaper, in the section ‘Gente con Luz’ (People with Light ´Luz´).

Marian Ochoa de Eribe

She was born in Bilbao in 1964. She holds a Doctorate in Comparative Literature from the University of Deusto, and worked as a Spanish language teaching assistant at Ovidius University of Constanta (Romania) between 1993 and 1997. She has translated a large part of the works of Mircea Cărtărescu for Impedimenta: ‘Nostalgia’, ‘Lulu’, ‘Beautiful Strangers’, ‘The Levant’, ‘The Brown Eye of Our Love´, ‘Solenoid’ and ‘The Left Wing’ (Blinding,1). The direct translation into Spanish of the first of these titles earned her the 2012 Estadio Crítico Prize for Translation for the best work translated into Spanish that year. She is also the translator of the Romanian authors Mihail Sebastian, Mircea Eliade and Panait Istrati.

Patricia Esteban Erlés

(Zaragoza, 1972) She is a lecturer and columnist for the Heraldo de Aragón. So far, she has published three books of stories: ‘Manderley en venta’, selected for the V Setenil Prize as one of the ten best books of stories published in Spain in 2008, ‘Abierto para fantoches’ and ‘Azul ruso’, by Páginas de Espuma. In 2012, with the same publishing house, she published the book of flash fiction, ‘Casa de Muñecas’ (Doll House) illustrated by Sara Morante. She recently published ‘Las madres negras’ with Galaxia Gutenberg, which earned her the Dos Passos First Novel Prize.

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.

Azul Tejerina

(Zumárraga, Gipuzkoa, 1973) A journalist by vocation, she dreamed of writing tales, telling real or imaginary stories and ended up getting her “paws” on what on what she calls “the best job in the world”. Naturally curious, this associate professor of Radio Narrative and Advertising at the University of Navarra, she uses empathy to put herself in the shoes of the other and she believes that all forms of media are valid and should be at the service of citizens, but the radio is her passion. After working at Cope Madrid and Cope La Rioja, in 2002 she joined Cadena Ser and for the last nine years she has directed the chat show “Hoy por hoy Bilbao”.

Marta Sanz

According to her publishers, Marta Sanz (Madrid, 1967) is unlike any other writer in this country. She uses humour as a diagnostic tool: dry humour and irony are more than a regular weapon in her work, as demonstrated in some of her most renowned novels, ‘Black, black, black’, ‘Un buen detective no se casa jamás’ and ‘La lección de anatomía’, all published by Anagrama. Her latest books are ‘Farándula’, 2016 Herralde Novel Prize, ‘Clavícula’ and the recently published ‘Amor fou’. Marta Sanz is also the author of several collections of poems and essays and regularly collaborates in the cultural sections of El País and in the supplement El Cultural of the newspaper El Mundo.

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

Guillermo Altares

He is a reporter for different sections of the newspaper El País, where he has held several management positions such as editor-in-chief of the International section, elpais.com and head of the cultural supplement Babelia. He has worked as a special envoy in more than 20 countries, including the conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Lebanon. He has given lectures at Spanish and international universities and he is a lecturer on the principles of journalism at the El País-UAM School of Journalism. He has also worked for the France Presse agency and at the now defunct newspaper El Sol. Guillermo Altares is a Chevalier de l´ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Asier y Javier

Asier Sanz (1969) and Javier Gamboa (1965), cartoonist and script writer respectively, form this pair of graphic humourists. They define themselves as “two human beings that are lucky enough to devote themselves to laughter and to be from Bilbao”. They have published in Diario 16, Diario Metro, Deia and El Jueves, among other outlets. In 2013 they published the comic strip “¡Sálvese quien podamos” and won the 6th Caragoler International Graphic Humour Competition. They collaborate in the newspaper Bilbao.