Why Literary Festivals Still Matter

What does a punk drummer have to do with a scholar of caste in India, or a border reporter who has walked for years with coyotes? At first glance, almost nothing. But their work, their testimonies, their questions—they all belong in the same room. They converge in a festival.

In 2018, I worked with the team at Hay Festival Global to bring their world-famous event to my hometown of Dallas, where I co-run The Wild Detectives bookshop. In those early years of establishing the event in the city, many friends and family asked me why I devote so much time and energy to organizing a festival. At first, I didn’t know how to answer. I thought about all the things a festival demands—the logistics, the budgets, the endless emails—and wondered how to explain that the real answer has little to do with the work itself. It has to do with why festivals exist at all, and why they still matter now.

Technology has connected us in ways that were unimaginable a generation ago, but in the same movement it has cut us off from other forms of connection. It has offered infinite information and entertainment at the cost of the spontaneous encounter, the face-to-face conversation, the unpredictable collision of people and ideas. We spend more hours scrolling than speaking. The time we devote to others in person has shrunk, almost without our noticing. A festival interrupts that trend. It reclaims time and space for presence.

I know this because I have felt it myself. When I first moved to another country, I struggled to speak the language. At events, I often said very little. But that silence taught me something: to listen deeply, to let ideas wash over me before forming a reply. It wasn’t easy, but it changed the way I understood communication. I began to value attention more than expression. Festivals carry a similar lesson. To sit in the audience is to practice humility, to allow someone else’s thoughts to shape the way you see the world without demanding an immediate response.

There is also a generational dimension. Our parents and grandparents took for granted that meaning in life was tied to physical gathering: markets, bars, churches, town squares. Digital culture eroded that assumption. It trained us to believe that connection was possible without bodies, without places. Yet now younger generations are rediscovering the opposite truth: that there is no substitute for being there. Festivals are among the clearest expressions of this rediscovery.

Of course, festivals are also celebrations. They provide joy, laughter, music, and food. But that surface is only part of the story. Their deeper role is to host inquietud—the restless desire to know more, to question assumptions, to look for connections across disciplines and geographies. A festival gives form to curiosity. It shows that adventure is not only found in distant travel but in the next conversation, the unexpected panel, the encounter you didn’t plan to have.

Sometimes it seems almost like a luxury to organize a festival while the world feels on fire. We face wars, the erosion of democracy, genocide, and the rise of new dictatorships. Why invest in literature, music, or dialogue at such a time? But precisely because of these crises, festivals prove their worth. They do not fix what is broken, but they remind us of our shared humanity and our capacity to imagine and connect.

This year, however, has brought additional challenges that make the effort feel heavier and more urgent. On the one hand, we have faced funding restrictions and administrative hurdles that go beyond the usual difficulties of organizing a cultural event. Even small details—posters, permits, promotional content—have encountered unexpected resistance. It is a quiet but effective way of discouraging cultural expression, by making every step slower, costlier, more fragile. When the flow of support narrows, the margin for error shrinks, and sustaining a festival is as much about holding your ground as it is about dreaming big.

On the other hand, there is the human dimension: the hesitation of some of our invited guests. In a year when headlines are filled with stories of arrests, deportations, and targeted crackdowns, not everyone feels safe traveling to the United States. I understand their doubts. To leave your home country and cross borders in a climate of fear is no small decision. Some worry about the reception they will face, about being singled out or delayed. Others simply wonder whether this is the right moment to expose themselves to that risk. Their reluctance is not a reflection of the festival itself, but of the wider atmosphere in which we all live.

And yet, precisely because of these challenges, I believe it is more important than ever for festivals like this to take place and for audiences to support them. The people who have chosen to come, and those who have worked to make this event happen despite the obstacles, have made an extra effort. Their presence is not to be taken for granted. It is a gesture of trust, a vote of confidence in the idea that conversation still matters, that culture is worth protecting, and that community is possible even in hostile conditions.

Walk through a festival and you will see what I mean. People drift between venues, carrying tote bags, scribbling in notebooks, waiting in line for coffee or drinks. They listen, they laugh, they argue, they dance. They experience culture not as isolated consumers but as participants in a shared present. And in that present, Fugazi’s drummer, a scholar of caste, and a border reporter are no longer distant figures. They are part of the same unfinished conversation about who we are and what kind of world we want.

That is why I believe festivals matter today. They restore presence in an age of absence. They cultivate listening in a time of noise. They celebrate curiosity when cynicism seems easier. And they invite us, however briefly, to inhabit a community of attention. If we take that spirit back into our daily lives, perhaps we will discover that festivals are not escapes from reality but rehearsals for the kind of society we still hope to build.

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Javier Garcia del Moral is coordinator of Hay Festival Forum Dallas, which takes place in venues across the Bishop Arts District, 17–19 October 2025. The bilingual program offers inspiring conversations, readings and performances from a range of writers and thinkers—poet and essayist Claudia Rankine; novelists Eimear McBride, Junot Díaz, Marc Haber, Laila Lalami, Tim Z Hernandez and Katie Kitamura; anthropologist Jason de Leon; essayist Marina Azahua; science writer Angela Saini; journalists Arwa Mahdawi and John Gibler; musicians Brendan Canty, Hugo Burnham and Manuel “Pantro Puto” Viamonte; rapper and poet Bocafloja; and more. Book tickets now at hayfestival.org/dallas or register to watch online.