The Hay Festival de Cartagena is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year. The venue is a gorgeous theatre right off the water that’s gilded, beautifully molded, and completely packed up through the balconies. The audience is the same mostly grey haired audience I’ve seen at all the other festivals I’ve attended in Canada although I spot a few more young people than I expect. I’ve secretly been hoping that this one would be different and I could witness a festival that engaged a young audience.

Today, Nicole Krauss takes the stage in a brilliant theatre just off the ocean with Juan Gabriel Vásquez and they’re talking about her new novel, Tel Aviv, and Kafka. The conversation is typical of festivals right until the end when they finally get to the good stuff. The suspension of belief by a lack of resolution, whether theological or novel has something to it that the world is currently lacking with our absolute knowledge defined in a moment by Google, anytime, anywhere. She says something to the like of, ‘We’re in an anxious time where we want to know the truth, but as soon as we give in to that need we turn our backs on wonder and the unknown.’ Another note she touches on briefly is the notion of meaning and changing the world. We’re so pressured to ‘make a difference’ in the world and many don’t consider novels an avenue for doing so BUT, she says, ‘what if there were no novels in the world? What would the people who had read a certain array be like if suddenly those novels were erased from their minds, would they have the same perspective?’ I’m transported back to my early years reading all my favourite books as a young girl on my bed: Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, Pride & Prejudice and yeah, I don’t think I would be the same without those books in my life.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to just sit and really enjoy such a conversation. After we file out into the Cartagena heat we’re given handmade popsicles that are lime green and full of pistachios. I walk along the old city wall that holds the city on one side and keeps the sea and the highway on the other. It’s a beautiful day and can’t get much better than this.