GERMAN BALANCE OF SPANISH PROJECT. The Spanish presence as guest literature at the world's largest book fair, which closed its doors last Sunday, was echoed in the two most influential newspapers in Germany. Paul Ingendaay wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: “It is not easy to make a hall of two thousand square meters attractive, but the Spanish did an excellent job with their pavilion. The two stages, one turquoise and the other cherry, are tall, airy tents whose walls are made of gauze-like fabric panels printed with text and through which you can flip through like a giant, fine print book.”
Ingendaay highlighted, with respect to the previous participation of Spain in 1991, "the incomparably higher proportion of women", who "dominate the literary scene and the organization of the appearance".
Karin Janker, in Süddeutsche Zeitung, spoke for her part of “the prose of the lost generation”. She cited the high rate of youth unemployment in Spain, second in Europe, and its expression in works "in which class consciousness and social background are explored and processed in a very individual way." The columnist focused on the creations of Isaac Rosa, Ana Iris Simon and Elena Medel, who would reveal, in her opinion, the “awakening in literature of the everyday world of those who find themselves one day in the streets of the city as janitors, sweepers or babysitters . It is a literature of the small that also narrates the great, injustice”.
The Hessenchau ARD team (digital and TV of the state of Hesse) valued in turn that the pavilion, "far from the Spanish clichés", had constant attendance. "Spain wanted to record an 'overflowing creativity' -motto of the pavilion and the program- and it complied. Ukraine had such a presence at the fair that we have to talk about a 'second guest of honour'”.
A CANON OF TRANSLATED WORKS. Also for the Süddeutsche Zeitung , Lily Brosowsky selected eight bets among the books translated into German this year. They are: 1. Thomas Nevinson , of Javier Marias. 2. I sing, tanzen the mountain , by Irene Solà. 3. The daughter of Cecilia of Antonio Munoz Molina. 4. What remains, is the Freud , by Manuel Vilas. 5. The Mauersegler , by Fernando Aramburu. 6. Mittens in Summer , by Anna Iris Simon. 7. A Love , by Sara Mesa. 8. Spanish and Hispanic American Poetry , anthology by Martin von Koppenfels and other authors.
GRATITUDE. In the tribute to Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Dolores Redondo said that she had not dared to approach him on her first Sant Jordi, since "another well-known author had belittled me, and I thought that if Carlos did it, I would not resist it, because he I admired him a lot” (time later they finally met “and he was very affectionate”).
The author believes that if her Baztán Trilogy found a fast path in the publishing world, it was because Ruiz Zafón had opened it before "by showing that the thriller could be combined with the supernatural."
CONDITION. The presence at the opening ceremony, and then at the fair, of the King and Queen of Spain, with the ministers of Culture and Foreign Affairs, and on Thursday of the economic vice-president Nadia Calviño, made explicit the state's commitment to the initiative and to the book Hopefully it stays. In the Spanish presence in 1991, the highest authority was the Minister of Culture, Jordi Solé Tura. In the Catalan presence of 2007, the president of the Generalitat José Montilla.
RELATIVE RECOVERY. The fair has had this year with 4000 exhibitors; in 2021 there were 1,500; in 2020 there was no face-to-face attendance at the meeting; in 2019, before the pandemic, it had 7,500 from over a hundred countries.
GLOBAL PROTAGONISM. Núria Cabutí, CEO of Penguin Random House, was a speaker at the Publishing Perspectives international forum. Jesus Badenes, from Planeta, debated with the president of the Ukrainian publishers after President Zelensky's digital intervention.
THREE LIVED FAIRS. Carme Riera, perhaps the only author present in the official invited literature programs of 1991, 2007 and today, points out that “any comparison is hateful. The Frankfurt of 1991 is my favorite because of what the discovery of the Fair and the city meant for me, and because the Germans had translated all my books and the publishers paid much attention to me. The Catalan year was very well organized, the house went out the window and it was worth it. This year's, in my case, sounded like a farewell, in addition to the evidence that literature, not so much books, is in recession."
THE TRANSLATION, BETTER THAN THE ORIGINAL?. The fair as a whole had this year adopted the motto “Translate. To transfer. Transform". At the opening press conference, Pakistani English-language writer Mohsin Hamid, author of 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist', said: “At least half of the books that have impressed me the most were originally written in languages I couldn't read. Without translators I would be half the reader I have been, and my own works are translated into many languages that I cannot speak. Without translators, I would be a fraction of the writer that I am. As Gabriel García Márquez said of his translator Gregory Rabassa: 'he wrote my novels better than I did'. I suspect that many writers, if we were able to read the work of our translators, would find ourselves saying the same thing."
THE FAKE NEWS. In some Catalan pro-independence media it was reported that it had been the fair that had forced the Spanish organization to invite authors in non-Castilian languages. This is denied by Marifé Boix, vice president of the Frankfurt fair for southern Europe and Latin America: "From the beginning, the Ministry of Culture proposed to present writers from all over Spain and in all the co-official languages."
