Central America Cuenta arrives in Guatemala with a tribute to Miguel Ángel Asturias and Roque Dalton's commitment.

Journalism and literature will meet again in Guatemala starting this Monday during the Centroamérica Cuenta festival, a project by Nicaraguan writer and Cervantes Prize winner Sergio Ramírez to promote the literature of a region oppressed by dictatorships and authoritarianism. Dozens of journalists and writers will meet for a week in the capital of the Central American country to discuss literary creation, how to tell the story of a region that repeats its mistakes once and for all, and to analyze the threats facing its fragile democracies, which suffer the excesses of authoritarian governments like that of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador or that of Daniel Ortega and his wife and co-president, Rosario Murillo, in Nicaragua .

This edition of the festival will be dedicated to Miguel Ángel Asturias , the only Central American Nobel Prize winner in Literature, whose work warned of the dangers of abuses of power in this volcanic, seismic, and ever-convulsive isthmus. The program, the organizers explain, will include discussions, workshops, visits to schools and universities, book presentations, and dialogues. Asturias also focused on the situation of the region's indigenous cultures, long abandoned and persecuted, primarily in Guatemala, a country that suffered one of the worst genocides under the military heel of Efraín Ríos Montt and other army leaders . Several festival activities will also take place in the indigenous communities of Comalapa and the fierce Totonicapán, bastions of resistance for the country's indigenous peoples.

The event will also celebrate the courage and commitment of Salvadoran poet Roque Dalton, author of the celebrated The Forbidden Stories of Tom Thumb . The tribute will take place fifty years after the writer's murder and will feature a panel analyzing Dalton's work and personality. "His poetry, marked by irony, critical lucidity, and profound humanity, continues to challenge the present. How does his writing connect with our questions, readings, and contexts today?" explain the festival organizers. Horacio Castellanos Moya (El Salvador),Luis García Montero (Spain), and Sergio Ramírez will discuss Dalton, along with Elena Salamanca (El Salvador).

The Festival will take place in Guatemala from May 19 to 24 with more than 90 guests, including prominent journalists such as Jon Lee Anderson, Alma Guillermoprieto, and American writer Richard Ford. "They will discuss literature, creative work, film, music, and key issues for the region, such as freedom of expression, human rights, migration, the environment, and the various forms of inequality that persist in our countries and the different forms of development," explains the festival. Among the invited artists is Spanish singer-songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat.

Current events in the region will be addressed in a series of conversations featuring EL PAÍS journalists. Jan Martínez Ahrens, director of the newspaper's American edition, will discuss journalism in times of hoaxes with Mexican journalist Carmen Aristegui, while deputy director Javier Lafuente will do the same in a session on the price reporters pay for their profession. Also participating in the discussion will be Carlos Fernando Chamorro, director of the magazine Confidencial forced into exile by the Ortega regime, and American Martin Baron. The newspaper's director, Pepa Bueno, will speak with President Bernardo Arévalo at the closing ceremony.