Journalist, writer and editor. Felipe Restrepo Pombo He was selected as one of the best young authors of the decade in Latin America by the Hay Festival. In an interview by video call with a free press, the author gives a retrospective of his professional walk and also a brief advance of his next presentation at the Central America Festival (CAC) 2025.
Restrepo was one of the disciples of Gabriel García Márquez, writer recognized by a Nobel Prize in literature and to bring to the new generations the passion for journalism. March 6 was his birthday and in 2025 he would be 98 years old. Márquez died on April 17, 2014.
In 2013 he was an invited editor in the Paris Match magazine, in Paris, and since then he is his correspondent. In 2015 he was invited by the British publishing house Maclehose Press to edit and prologize The Sorrows of Mexicowinner of English Pen Award. He edited two anthologies in the Chronic Collection with the best of Latin American narrative journalism.
In 2018 he was chosen a residence writer by the British Council in Wales. He has been coordinator of the Anagrama of Chronicle in Spain and jury of the Neustadt Literature Award in the United States.
It was editor for Latin America of EsquireCultural editor of Week and director of Arcadia. He has collaborated in BBC, Words Without Borders and World Literature Todayamong others. He has issued writing workshops in the United States, Mexico, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina and Colombia.
How does the passion for writing begin?
I have always felt passion for writing, reading and stories. I can’t specify since when, but possibly from my childhood.
I grew up in a family where there was always very care and respect for different forms of artistic creation, as well as for philosophy, writing and literature. My father is also a philosopher and journalist. Since childhood he saw what his work was like and accompanied to editorial meetings, writing rooms and printing.
At home there was a big library, where there was no obligation to read, but the books were available, and thus I began to discover other worlds. There was born my love for reading. Growing up, I devoured more books and stories with the idea that one day I would be a writer. It was a fantasy: I dreamed of writing.
I studied literature and almost at the same time I started working in a called magazine Changein Colombia. I had the great fortune that this magazine was owned by Gabriel García Márquez, qUien was also his editor and director. There I discovered how he related to young journalists and learned from him that passion for telling stories.
At that time, he was already a recognized novelist and winner of the Nobel Prize. He took the time to talk to journalists, guide them and be a light for the guild. That experience transmitted a huge passion that is still alive.
His journey has been wide as a journalist in different cultures. How was the experience of knowing various ways of thinking?
If one does his trade well, it is about being curious about the world and finding stories everywhere. One of the great opportunities offered by journalism is to live many lives and explore different worlds.
Since I started in journalism, in different media, I have been clear about that will to know the stories of others and also understand my own history.
This profession has allowed me to travel around the world, meet people of all kinds and have the fortune to interview very interesting people. I always say that one of the great teachings is to understand why people do what they do and what their motivations are. It is about understanding what is behind the vital experience of others.
Have any of these stories impact more than another in your life?
There are many and I have tried to take all to my books, I would not have one in particular. I have had the luck and rigor to bring these discoveries to others, through my texts. In my journalism books I have created profiles of Latin American characters that have been relevant and have marked their fields, which have been creators or thinkers.
How is your creative process?
Each new project is a huge challenge. People believe that the more they are written and publishes it is increasingly easy to write and, on the contrary, it is increasingly difficult and complex and greater commitment is required. Batallo with the stories, it takes me a lot of myself writing and finding those characters. My last two books have been fiction: Forms of evasion(2016) and Ceremony(2021).
Each one has been dispensed, has taken me time, took time to investigate, read and think what I want to write. One of the responsibilities that one has as a writer is to deliver the work with the best quality. I do a previous and complex job, I think of scenes, environments and what I am going to create. I build it little by little. It takes several years between book and book, understanding what I want to narrate.
In your facet as a journalist, what do you think are the most important challenges to achieve success in an industry that changes at a dizzying pace?
Journalism is going through a complex moment, for a difficult time. Although I do not believe that journalism is the one in crisis, I think they are the media industries, because they are changing their business levels, their ways of transcending.
I agree that we live at a time where there is a huge amount of information, false information, information created by artificial intelligence and in different ways and in a massive way. Thanks to social networks, this information is circulating all the time through different channels. What journalists can do is do our job more professionally and deeply.
We must not compete against speed, but to go to the bottom of the stories, Looking for what is behind so many data and facts, finding people, who are the soul of our stories. It is important to find them and narrate why they are there what they are doing and narrate them in the best way.
In a world in which there are so many threats and confusion and interested in people circulating around, it is a challenge for us the journalists who take our work seriously.
We must be more careful and verify until we find those stories that are worth it. Journalism has not lost audiences, but the ability to impact and surprise, and that is why we must win audiences and the attention of people and readers through the quality of our work.
What can we expect from Central America in this new edition?
It is my first time in Guatemala and at this festival. I am happy, because it is a space that has been growing over the years and together a number of Spanish -American voices and the world that is worth listening to. A festival that is made with a lot of effort and work. I will participate in different tables and I will be talking about my narrative work, my books, novels, my non -fiction work and, surely, I will share with many colleagues that I estimate and admire.
We must transmit that interest that generates spaces such as CAC. We must have rigor as writers and get better things, this is our work. The CAC is also a time to share with readers and people who are interested in narrative, stories and artistic experiences.