<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>King Felipe VI will participate in the solemn session of the 10th Congress of the Spanish Language in Arequipa (Peru) on October 15. This session will include a tribute to Nobel Prize winner in Literature Mario Vargas Llosa, who passed away last April.</strong></h4> The 10th International Congress of the Spanish Language (CILE), organized by the Instituto Cervantes, the Royal Spanish Academy, ASALE (Association of Academies of the Spanish Language), and the host country, will be held in the Peruvian city of Arequipa from October 14 to 17, 2025, under the theme "Major Challenges of the Spanish Language: Mestizaje and Interculturality, Clear and Accessible Language, Digital Cultures, and Artificial Intelligence." During the congress, the capital of Arequipa will host the King of Spain, the President of Peru, Dina Boluarte; the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun; the director of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) and president of the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language (ASALE), Santiago Muñoz Machado; the director of the Instituto Cervantes, Luis García Montero; and the president of the Peruvian Academy of Language, Eduardo F. Hopkins, among other authorities. More than 260 international speakers and lecturers will participate in the congress, including academics, writers (Javier Cercas, Gioconda Belli, Fernando Iwasaki, and Juan Gabriel Vásquez, among others), linguists, historians, professors, and other specialists. They will be joined by more than 180 journalists from Peru, Latin America, and Spain who will cover the academic and cultural activities. According to the Instituto Cervantes on October 3, one of the highlights of the CILE program will be the presentation of the "Mario Vargas Llosa Dictionary. He Inhabited Words," which will take place on Tuesday, October 14, at the Vargas Llosa Library. García Montero, writer Carlos Granés, and Morgana Vargas Llosa, the photographer and daughter of the Peruvian author, will participate in the event. The renovated Vargas Llosa House Museum will then host the in memoriam presentation of Vargas Llosa's legacy, which will travel to the Caja de las Letras del Cervantes in Madrid. With the Arequipa congress, Peru joins the ranks of countries that have hosted the most important event dedicated to the Spanish language for more than 25 years. Previous CILEs were held in Zacatecas (Mexico, 1997), Valladolid (Spain, 2001), Rosario (Argentina, 2004), Cartagena de Indias (Colombia, 2007), Valparaíso (Chile, 2010, held online due to an earthquake), Panama (Panama, 2013), San Juan (Puerto Rico, 2016), Córdoba (Argentina, 2019), and Cádiz (Spain, 2023). Arequipa was originally scheduled to host the ninth International Congress of the Spanish Language in 2023, but was forced to withdraw in favor of Cádiz due to political instability in the country. For this reason, at the end of that Congress (held in March 2023), it was decided to once again entrust the Peruvian city with hosting the next edition.
