Loading...
Event 55: Marta Jiménez Serrano and Nerea Pérez de las Heras in conversation
by
Back to HAY FESTIVAL SEGOVIA 2026
Sun, Sep 13, 2026
12:20 PM – 1:10 PM (GMT+2)
Private Location (sign in to display)
1
Registered
Details
An accident can divide a life in two. It can also become a new way of looking at the world.
Marta Jiménez Serrano and Nerea Pérez de las Heras draw from life-threatening experiences to create two books that move beyond autobiography and explore universal themes. In Oxygen, Jiménez Serrano reflects on the carbon monoxide poisoning that nearly killed her, connecting the experience with broader reflections on love, family, housing, and precarity. In Ghost, Pérez de las Heras transforms the loss of part of her leg after a maritime accident into a sharp and luminous meditation on the body, identity, public healthcare, vulnerability, and friendship.
With sensitivity, humour, and a remarkable ability to turn personal experience into literature, both authors confront death directly in order to celebrate the daily wonder of still being here.
At the end of the event, the authors will sign copies of their books.
Event in Spanish.
Speakers
Marta Jiménez Serrano
Author
Marta Jiménez Serrano holds a degree in Hispanic Philology and a master’s degree in Literary Studies and Modern Languages. Her first book, the poetry collection La edad ligera (2021), was awarded second prize in the 2020 Adonáis Prize. She subsequently published the novel Los nombres propios (2021), which was a finalist for the Festival du Premier Roman de Chambéry prize and was selected by El Cultural as one of the best debuts of the year. Her collection of short stories No todo el mundo (2023) won the 2023 Nollegiu Prize and was a finalist for the Madrid Booksellers’ Prize and the Openbank Prize for Literature by Vanity Fair, as well as being chosen as one of the books of the year by media outlets such as Babelia, Cadena Ser and RTVE. She has also contributed to the anthologies Querida Theresa (2022), El gran libro de los pájaros (2023) and Una navidad así (2024). In 2022, she was awarded a residency grant at the Cité internationale des arts (Paris). Her fiction has been translated into Italian. She has been a columnist for La Lectura (El Mundo) and a contributor to the television programme Ovejas eléctricas (TVE). She currently hosts Puro cuento, the literary programme on Carne Cruda. She lives in Madrid, where she teaches creative writing. Oxígeno (2026) is her latest book.
Nerea Pérez de Las Heras
Journalist and broadcaster
Nerea Pérez de Las Heras is known for her work as a journalist and broadcaster across various platforms, always using humour as a tool for reflection and raising awareness. She currently produces and hosts the podcasts Saldremos mejores alongside Inés Hernand and Lo Normal alongside Antonio Nuño. Throughout her career, she has written for media outlets such as RNE, RTVE, El País, SModa, Vogue, Esquire and Glamour, and continues to contribute to some of these as well as to various radio and television programmes. She made a name for herself performing political comedy in public through the show Feminismo para torpes, which was turned into a book and a series of videos for the newspaper El País. Between 2021 and 2023, she created and performed the play Cómo hemos llegado hasta aquí alongside the screenwriter and actress Olga Iglesias on a tour throughout Spain. She has been recognised for her militant lesbianism with the Arcoiris (2022) and Fancinegay (2023) PLUMA awards; and for her work as a communicator, with the Ondas Podcast Award for Best Conversational Programme (2024).