Fascinating lives

In a contemporary world where autobiography is very present, ISLA Festival wants to explore some recent works that capture the fascination, surprise and everyday life or mysteries of others' lives.

Alongside writers Fernando Beltrán, author of the literary fiction Bacon sin Bacon, Irene Chikiar Bauer, author of the essay Virginia Woolf y Victoria Ocampo: Biografía de un encuentro, and Nuala O’Connor, author of Seaborne, an intimate and thrilling portrait of the life of Irish pirate Anne Bonny, we will delve into these figures and discover the reasons that led their authors to explore those lives, the challenges they faced, the research process, and to what extent fiction and reality intertwine in their books.

Fernando Beltrán is a Spanish poet. He burst onto the literary scene with his poetry collection Aquelarre en Madrid (1982, Adonáis Prize). A versatile namer of emotions, he has published over twenty poetry collections, and his work, widely translated, also includes editions in dialogue with visual artists and translations of Stevenson and Leonard Cohen. He is an associate professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts at UPV (Valencia, Spain). His latest book is Bacon sin Bacon.

Irene Chikiar Bauer is a journalist, teacher, and writer. She has published literary essays and is the author of the books Eduarda Mansilla. Entre-ellos, una escritora argentina del siglo XIX; Virginia Woolf, la vida por escrito; Victoria Ocampo. El ensayo personal (Mardulce, 2021) and Virginia Woolf y Victoria Ocampo. Biografía de un encuentro. She is also a playwriter. As a journalist, she has worked on radio, television and print media, and has conducted interview series with writers for several media.

Nuala O’Connor lives in Galway, Ireland. Her sixth novel Seaborne, about Irish-born pirate Anne Bonny, was published in April 2024 by New Island. Her novel Nora (New Island), about Nora Barnacle and James Joyce, was a Top 10 historical novel in the New York Times. She won Irish Short Story of the Year at the 2022 Irish Book Awards and is editor at flash e-journal Splonk. www.nualaoconnor.com

Tara Plunkett is a Hispanist at University College Dublin. Her research focuses on Spanish and Latin American artists' use of Surrealist in works of self-fashioning, how avant-garde cultural production is canonised, classified and curated, and the presentations of masculinities, femininities and identities in Almodóvar’s films. She is co-editor of Preservation, Radicalism and the Avant-Garde Canon (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), and curator of the exhibition Out of the Ordinary: Contemporary Visions of the Avant-Garde.

A collaboration of the Instituto Cervantes Dublin with the Embassy of Argentina, with the support of Literature Ireland.

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En una contemporaneidad donde la autobiografía está muy presente, el festival ISLA quiere acercarse a algunas de las obras recientes que rescatan la fascinación, sorpresa, cotidianidad o misterios de la vida de los otros.

Junto a los escritores Fernando Beltrán, autor de la ficción literaria Bacon sin Bacon, Irene Chikiar Bauer, autora del ensayo Virginia Woolf y Victoria Ocampo: Biografía de un encuentro, y Nuala O’Connor, autora de Seaborne, un retrato íntimo y emocionante de la vida de la pirata irlandesa Anne Bonny, nos acercaremos a esas figuras y descubriremos los motivos que han llevado a sus autores a indagar en sus vidas, los retos a los que se han enfrentado, el proceso de investigación o hasta qué punto la ficción y la realidad se entrelazan en sus libros.

Una colaboración del Instituto Cervantes Dublín con la Embajada de Argentina, con el apoyo de Literature Ireland.

Host or Publisher Instituto Cervantes Dublin