There is a character who needs no introduction in the halls of Centroamérica Cuenta. He moves with the lightness of a specter and the precision of a surgeon among conference rooms, evening cocktails, and shared tables. Last week, while Panama became the epicenter of words and debate in a region battered by violence and authoritarianism, yet indomitable, he was doing what he does best: capturing the soul of Latin American literature. He is Daniel Mordzinski, “the photographer of writers,” a creator who not only attends the literary celebration but also provides it with visual memory.
In this edition of the festival, his lens has always been present, blending with the environment in a heated discussion about censorship and exile, getting lost among the murmur of a publishing presentation, or capturing the frank, disarmed laughter of an author in the middle of a dinner among the tables of the huge dining room of the Hotel Central, in the colonial heart of this canal city.
Daniel Mordzinski’s lens, hunter of Central American memory
Although Mordzinski states that “there is no Mordzinski method nor a recipe,” he has turned his particular technique for portraying authors into a chapter of modern photography itself. The Argentine photographer, based in Paris with a wandering heart, possesses the rare gift of making even the shyest writers accomplices. He knows when to disappear so that the genuine gesture, the tired look after hours of debate, or the noisy complicity of a Caribbean party can emerge.
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The images that make up this photo gallery are the testimony of that truce the festival offers to the region’s creators: a space where Panama served as refuge and loudspeaker to reflect on the isthmus. Here appears the Mexican linguist Yásnaya Aguilar Gil, amid the erotic Panamanian foliage, wearing a skirt as green as that hairy jungle. The portrait of writer Junot Díaz, crouched beside a palm tree, evokes his past as a migrant, with his personal pains and triumphs. The Spaniard Luis García Montero, director of the Instituto Cervantes, takes a nap, with his arms crossed behind his head, in the hotel lobby, drowning the stifling tropical heat with a blue guayabera. Hilarious is the portrait of Rubén Blades with his face surrounded by Panama hats, as elegant as that of Colombian Patricia Janiot, captured among colonial ruins. And Sergio Ramírez could not be missing, portrayed with the L of Libertad, the letter indicating the position he now holds in the Royal Spanish Academy.
Looking at this series of portraits is to tour the festival from within, far from the intimidation of the microphone. Here are the faces of Centroamérica Cuenta 2026: intellectual commitment, the embrace of reunion, and the lucidity of those who narrate a complex reality. Mordzinski portrays the humanity behind book signings. This is a visual chronicle that shows that sometimes, a precise shot, a good one, tells the story of a region as deeply as its best novel.
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