At least three authors withdraw from Hay festival in protest at Machado invite

Original article by Tiago Rogero South America correspondent

At least three writers have withdrawn from next month’s Hay festival in Cartagena, Colombia, in protest at an invitation extended to the Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel laureate María Corina Machado.

The main reason cited by them is Machado’s support for Donald Trump’s four-month pressure campaign against Venezuela’s dictator Nicolás Maduro and her comments in favour of a potential US military intervention in the Caribbean country.

Their boycott stands as another sign that Machado – who has close ties with far-right leaders in the region, including Argentina’s Javier Milei and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro – is far from a consensus figure in Latin America.

On Monday, Machado was among the many rightwing leaders worldwide who cheered the election of the ultra-conservative José Antonio Kast – an avowed admirer of the dictator Augusto Pinochet – as Chile’s next president.

In a letter announcing her withdrawal from the Hay festival Cartagena, the acclaimed Colombian author Laura Restrepo described Machado as “an active supporter of US military intervention in Latin America”.

The author of Delirium added: “No platform should be given or audience facilitated for someone who, like Ms Machado, promotes positions and activities that subject our peoples and undermine the sovereignty of our countries. Imperialist intervention is not something to debate, but something to reject outright.”

Another Colombian author, Giuseppe Caputo, cited the deadly US airstrikes on boats that have so far killed more than 90 people many of them in the same Caribbean waters that border Cartagena.

“I think that, given the grave moment of escalating imperial violence, it is better to withdraw from a festival held on the shores of the bombarded Caribbean Sea, which has decided to invite someone who dedicated a peace prize to the fascist responsible for these crimes,” wrote Caputo on his social media, recalling that Machado dedicated her Nobel prize to Trump.

Machado recently told CBS that she “absolutely supports President Trump’s strategy” on Venezuela and that the “cost of staying in power” for Maduro must be increased “by force”.

The Venezuelan opposition leader suffered a vertebra fracture during her film-like escape from Venezuela, where she had been in hiding for more than a year, to Oslo, Norway, to receive the prize.

After a clandestine 5,500-mile journey that involved passing through multiple checkpoints on land, being rescued by a team led by a US special forces veteran after 12 hours in a flimsy boat in the rough Caribbean waters, and a flight on a private jet to Oslo, she ultimately missed the Nobel ceremony but took part in events and press conferences.

It is unclear when or how she will return to Venezuela. Her remote participation in the Hay festival Cartagena – in a conversation with the Venezuelan journalist and former minister of trade and industry Moisés Naím – is still scheduled January 30.

Machado’s team said she would not comment on the writers’ protest.

The festival, which was founded in Wales and later expanded to other countries, issued a statement saying it respected the authors’ decisions but believed that open and diverse dialogue is essential to defending “the free exchange of ideas and freedom of expression”.

“It is important to clarify that the Hay festival does not align itself with or endorse the opinions, positions or statements of those who take part in its activities, nor their political views,” it added.

The Dominican writer and activist Mikaelah Drullard, the third to pull out in protest, said the festival’s invitation to Machado amounted to a validation of everything she says and “an ideological weapon to promote her justifications for US intervention, invasion and militarisation of the Caribbean, and of her delight at the success of the ultra-right Kast in Chile’s election.”