Three Colombians in a Select Group of Young Authors at FIL Guadalajara

The prestigious Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL) in Mexico, created in 1987 at the initiative of the University of Guadalajara, is currently the world’s largest market for publications in Spanish. This important showcase proposed for this year a list of 26 authors, up to 40 years old, whose works expand the horizons of the contemporary novel in the Spanish language, and three Colombian authors are among them.

They are Felipe Nunez Mestre, Maria del Mar Ramon, and Lorena Salazar Masso, who will be in the sights of editors, literary agents, reading promoters, translators, distributors and librarians, who attend the event every year to conduct commercial and professional exchanges. More than 900,000 people also gather there, spending nine days immersed in books and enjoying one of the most important cultural festivals in Latin America.

What the three Colombian authors have done

Nunez Mestre (Valledupar, Cesar, 1992) is a lawyer and graduate of the Master’s Degree in Journalism from the University of Los Andes, in Bogota. He has published chronicles, literary reviews and opinion columns in print and digital media such as Arcadia, El Malpensante and Canal 1.

In 2014 he received the La Cueva National Short Story Award for his story ‘Abrakadaber’, and his story ‘Frutas de duelo’ (‘Fruits of Grief’) was recognized with the Ciudad de Bogota District Short Story Award in 2018. In 2023 he won the Casa de las Americas Award for his book of short stories ‘Todos somos islas’ (‘We Are All Islands’).

Maria del Mar Ramon (Bogota, 1992) is the author of the novel ‘La Manada’ (‘The Pack’) (Planeta, 2021) and the book of essays ‘Tirar y vivir sin culpa. El placer es feminista’ (‘Fuck and Live Without Guilt. Pleasure Is Feminist’) (Planeta, 2019). She is a columnist for Vice and writes for various Latin American media outlets.

With the story ‘El deseo es una cicatriz’ (‘Desire Is a Scar’), she was part of the anthology ‘Cuerpos’ (‘Bodies’) (Seix Barral, 2019). She currently works in radio and in the development of audiovisual content. She has lived in Buenos Aires since 2012.

For her part, Salazar Masso (Medellin, 1991) is an advertising professional and writer who studied Advertising at the Pontifical Bolivarian University of Medellin, Creativity at the Roger Hatchuel Academy, and also took part in the creative writing workshop at the Central University of Bogota and the Master’s Degree in Narrative at the School of Writers in Madrid.

She has taught creative writing workshops in Colombia and Spain, as well as advertising writing in Colombia and Ecuador. She has published the novels ‘Esta herida llena de peces’ (‘This Wound Full of Fish’) (2021) and ‘Maldenina’ (2023), as well as other texts in different magazines. Her work addresses a variety of themes, among which tragic maternal love, loneliness and child abandonment stand out.

In addition, her stories take place in exotic settings, such as Colombia’s Atrato River and the communities surrounding it in the department of Choco. She also explores the complexity of life in the Latin American jungles, offering a realistic view of the experiences of the inhabitants of these regions.

Diverse careers that come from different countries

The FIL, which will take place from November 28 to December 6 at Expo Guadalajara, will celebrate four decades of existence this year, and to celebrate it, it proposed the reading of 26 novelists, up to 40 years of age, whose writing represents a diversity of geographies and themes, as well as fresh, bold and plural perspectives.

The list is completed, from Mexico, by Laura Baeza, Jorge Comensal, Elisa Diaz Castelo, Luis Garcia Manriquez, and Hiram Ruvalcaba; from Peru, Rosa Chavez Yacila, Stuart Flores, and J. J. Maldonado; from Argentina, Roberto Chuit Roganovich, Luciana Sousa, and Leila Sucari; from Spain, Munir Hachemi, Marta Jimenez Serrano, and Lucia Solla Sobral; from Uruguay, Eugenia Ladra, and Tamara Silva Bernaschina; from Venezuela, Raquel Abend; from Costa Rica, Roberto Cambronero; from Ecuador, Natalia Garcia Freire; from Bolivia, Gabriel Mamani Magne; from Chile, Sofia Troncoso; from Cuba, Elaine Vilar Madruga; and from Nicaragua, Fatima Villalta.

The curation of this proposal by the Guadalajara FIL was entrusted to literature specialists, editors, journalists and writers, who reviewed more than 200 profiles of authors with at least one novel written and published in Spanish.

The Selection Committee for “26 in 26” was made up of Ana Garcia Bergua, Antonio Ortuno, Sara Poot Herrera, Winston Manrique Sabogal and Marisol Schulz Manaut. Following the final deliberation, on August 4, 2026, conducted remotely, the literary quality, diversity and ability of the works to show the paths of the contemporary novel were evaluated, and the selected authors were announced.

These authors were born between 1986 and 2000, and have diverse careers, national and international awards, and works translated into different languages. They are also writers linked to poetry, essays, journalism, theater and academic research, as well as voices beginning to make their way in contemporary narrative.

Their works address the social and cultural transformations of the present, memory, the body, identity, nature, science, migration and the relationships between territories and communities, among many other topics.