Beyond the authors coming to the first edition of Festival 42, which range from Giovanna Rivero to Edmundo Paz Soldán, the event organisers thought it was essential to celebrate and disseminate the long and sometimes little known Latin American fantasy tradition, which is clearly much richer and more varied than one might think based on phenomena such as the Latin American Boom and magical realism (and with many more female authors, by the way, than we've been told by official history). To do this, the Festival also features some of the leading specialists in this matter, coordinators of such unmissable books and anthologies as the two-volume collective essay Historia de la ciencia ficción en la narrativa latinoamericana, coordinated by the researcher Teresa López-Pellisa; the very personal anthology América fantástica by Mariano Villarreal; and others directed, channelled or monitored by the great specialist David Roas from his Fantasy Study Group at the UAB. Accompanied by the Costa Rican scholar Lucía Leandro, who leads López-Pellisa's project in Central America, they will all provide an overview full of findings to help us assess the tradition, current status and future prospects of Latin American fantasy writing.

Taking part:

Lucía Leandro is a researcher who holds a doctorate with a thesis on speculative fiction by Central American female writers. She has published a number of articles and contributed to the book Historia de la ciencia ficción en la narrativa latinoamericana.

Teresa López Pellisa is a researcher, essayist and lecturer at the University of Alcalá. She has published and coordinated articles, books and anthologies including, among others, Poshumanas y distópicas, Insólitas, Las otras and Historia de la ciencia ficción latinoamericana vol. 1 y 2.

Mariano Villarreal is the administrator of the website Literatura Fantástica (Literfan). He has put together anthologies including Terra nova and América fantástica, among others. He has just published the biography Domingo Santos. Una vida de ciencia ficción.

Moderated by:

David Roas is a writer and lecturer at Barcelona Autonomous University (UAB), where he leads the Fantasy Study Group. He has been awarded an ICREA Academy award and has published leading studies such as Tras los límites de lo real and Voces de lo fantástico, as well as works of fiction such as Distorsiones and Invasión.