Princess of Asturias Award 2020 goes to Hay Festival and Guadalajara Book Fair

The PRINCESS OF ASTURIAS AWARD FOR COMMUNICATION AND HUMANITIES 2020 has been awarded jointly to the Hay Festival of Literature and Arts and the Guadalajara International Book Fair .

The Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL) is considered the largest meeting of the Spanish-speaking publishing world and the most important literary fair in the world along with that of Frankfurt (Germany). The Hay Festival of Literature & Arts has become one of the most important cultural events, having exported its formula from the small Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye to cities in different countries in Europe and America.

From the Jury statement: 

Both events bring the most varied publics together around Literature and congregate hundreds of thousands of visitors every year with the aim of fomenting the habit of the reading. The Guadalajara Fair and the Hay Festival further contribute decisively to strengthening cultural industries and making them sustainable.

In a statement by the directors of Hay Festival:

"Hay Festival celebrates and brings writers and readers together to imagine the world. It has never seemed more important to try to understand our crises and our opportunities, to find new ways of connecting people, and to foster a sense of renewal and hope. To the jury and the Prize, and all our colleagues and partners and readers and festival-makers around the world over these 33 years, we say - thank you.”

The Hay Festival recently ran a successful Hay Festival Digital, with a full programme of online events, attracting audiences from around the world, with nearly half a million live event streams over the two week festival. People from more than 69 countries joined free sessions featuring over 100 award-winning writers, global policy makers, historians, Nobel Prize-winning economists, pioneers and innovators, under the theme #ImagineTheWorld. For a very modest subscription (£10 annual fee) on the Hay Player you can catch up on the events and conversations from 2020 and many years back of previous Hay Festivals around the world.

The Princess of Asturias Foundation convenes the Princess of Asturias Awards, which are presented at an academic ceremony held each year in Oviedo, capital of the Principality of Asturias. The Foundation’s aims are to contribute to extolling and promoting those scientific, cultural and humanistic values that form part of the universal heritage of humanity and to consolidate the existing links between the Principality of Asturias and the title traditionally held by the heirs to the Crown of Spain.