The Rosa y Negro literary festival will celebrate its third edition from November 19 to 21 in Madrid’s 11th district, offering a program that brings together more than thirty writers, illustrators, filmmakers, and culture professionals. Alice Kellen, Carmen Posadas, Espido Freire, Blue Jeans, Carlos Zanón, Andrea Longarela, Santiago Díaz, Vanessa Montfort, Teresa Cardona, Marcelo Luján and Eduardo Torres-Dulce, among others, will participate in three days dedicated to exploring the common ground between the romantic novel and crime fiction.
After its first two editions in Tres Cantos, Rosa y Negro begins a new phase in one of Madrid’s most distinctive districts. The Fernando Lázaro Carreter Cultural Center will be the main venue for three days of encounters, discussions, round tables, exhibitions, cinema, poetry, children’s activities, and music. The program will also extend to the district’s high schools, with the aim of bringing reading and literary creation closer to young people.
More than thirty guests, including writers, illustrators, film professionals, and specialists from various fields, will participate in this edition. The lineup includes such well-known names as Alice Kellen, Andrea Longarela, Carmen Posadas, Espido Freire, Blue Jeans, Carlos Zanón, Santiago Díaz, Teresa Cardona, Vanessa Montfort, Ana Merino, Marcelo Luján, Inés Plana, Ulises Bértolo, Maribel Medina, Myriam M. Lejardi, Gervasio Posadas, David Llorente, María Zabay, Lucía de Vicente, and Eduardo Torres-Dulce, among others.
THREE DAYS TO EXPLORE THE BORDERS BETWEEN LOVE AND CRIME
The opening, on Thursday, November 19, will mark the beginning of a program that seeks to demonstrate that great feelings and the darkest passions can coexist in a single story. The day will start with activities in educational centers, with David Llorente and Gervasio Posadas, who will bring students closer to the noir genre and the keys to writing a romantic or detective novel. There will also be a discussion on literary adaptations into audiovisual language aimed at the Image and Sound students of Puerta Bonita.
In the afternoon, after the inaugural ceremony and the presentation of Marta Robles as festival curator, with the presence of the Councilor President of the 11th District Municipal Board (Carabanchel), Carlos Izquierdo, the prizes for the Youth Short Story Contest will be awarded, an initiative inviting secondary and high school students to write their own love and mystery stories inspired by Carabanchel.
Next, the roundtable Love also kills will bring together Alice Kellen, Andrea Longarela, David Llorente and Carlos Zanón to discuss the points where two genres—sharing emotions, conflicts, and characters pushed to the limit—meet.
One of the day’s main attractions will be the opening of the exhibition Love and Crime in World Literature, an illustrated journey through two essential literary universes: Jane Austen and Sherlock Holmes. The exhibit features graphic pieces by Giselfust and Fernando Vicente, drawn from works published by Alma Editorial, a festival partner.
It will include a guided tour by Fernando Vicente himself and the writer Espido Freire, who has built a close relationship with the figure and works of Jane Austen, about whom she has studied in depth and dedicated several publications.
Friday the 20th will be devoted, among other topics, to real crimes and the world of comics. The day will begin with new visits by writers to the district’s schools, this time with Santiago Díaz, and will continue in the afternoon with Readers Want to Know, a meeting between reading clubs and Inés Plana, Teresa Cardona, Carlos Zanón and Victoria Clarkson.
The true crime genre will then take center stage in the debate. Francesc Soler, author of The Handsome Killers; Bea Osa, author of The Scent of Death in Pioz, and Miguel Ángel Aguilar, a senior prosecutor for hate crimes, will discuss the fascination surrounding real crimes, their translation into books, and the complex relationship between reality, investigation, and storytelling.
Comics will also have a space with Viva the Comic: How Much Noir and How Much Pink Are in Comics, a panel featuring Laura Pérez Vernetti, Juan Díaz Canales and Keko Godoy, moderated by Ana Merino.
The day will conclude with a Poetic Jam, featuring Ana Merino, the poet Alberto Morate and several district poets.
On Saturday the 21st, the younger readers will take the stage with Pequelectores, a program of literary games and creative workshops designed to bring both genres closer to the young audience.
Juvenile literature will then headline the meeting From Pink to Juvenile Noir, with Blue Jeans, Myriam M. Lejardi and Sandra Martínez-Raguso, moderated by Margarita Quesada, while the roundtable We’re Urban, but the Countryside Also Exists will address two literary trends that have found an increasingly wide audience: rural noir and rural romance. Participants will be Maribel Medina, Marcelo Luján and Lucía de Vicente.
In the afternoon, Eduardo Torres-Dulce, a lawyer and film critic, will invite attendees to delve into one of the most intriguing enigmas in the Sherlock Holmes universe: Irene Adler and the sentimental enigma of Sherlock Holmes. A reflection on the relationship between the famed detective and the woman who challenged his intellect, from Conan Doyle’s original tale to the various interpretations offered by cinema.
The festival’s closing stretch will feature two face-to-face encounters between representatives of romantic fiction and crime fiction. María Zabay and Vanessa Montfort will share conversation in the first, while Carmen Posadas and Ulises Bértolo will headline the second.
Cinema will provide the literary finale to the day with Shorts of Love and Death, a screening that will include Ava, by Mabel Lozano; The Girl You Didn’t Know How to Love, by Marta Robles, and Love Threatened, by Héctor Herce. After the screening, an engaging discussion will follow with Noemí Trujillo, Héctor Herce and Marta Robles.
Next, the Rosa y Negro Awards will be presented for the best romance novel and the best noir novel, with judges including Alice Kellen, Toni S. Bernal and Marta Robles.
Music will provide the final note to this third edition with a performance by the band ¡Miau!, linked to the Carabanchel district.
A FESTIVAL THAT WANTS TO GROW WITH CARABANCHEL
The arrival of Rosa y Negro in Carabanchel is not merely a change of venue. The festival aspires to integrate itself into the district’s cultural life, forge connections with its readers, bookstores, libraries, educational centers, associations, and cultural agents, and turn literature into a meeting point open to everyone.
Directed by Marta Robles and in collaboration with the Carabanchel District Municipal Board, the festival also has the support of the Community of Madrid, through funding from the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Sports.
Rosa y Negro thus celebrates the value of literature as a space for conversation, discovery, and participation. Because, although at first glance they may seem like opposing worlds, love and crime share something essential: both are capable of pushing human beings to their limits and of generating stories that no reader wants to abandon.