A few decades ago, if one were looking for authors who reflected the daily life of migrant neighborhoods in our cities, they turned to Anglo-Saxon literature (Hanif Kureishi, Junot Díaz) or Francophone literature (Maryse Condé, Alain Mabanckou). The Spain that is presented this week at the Frankfurt Book Fair has little to do with that of 1991, and several authors with family origins in China, the Maghreb, sub-Saharan Africa or Eastern Europe are part of the guests or the sales offers that move the hundreds of agents present at the event.
If Najat El Hachmi (Nador, 1979) tours several German cities presenting the translation of Monday they will love us, Nadal 2021 award, another Catalan, Nadia Hafid (Terrassa, 1990), a regular illustrator for publications such as The New Yorker or The New York Times , presents his two comics, The Good Father (2020) and the recently published Jackals (Sapristi). The first, clearly autobiographical, tells the family story of a girl whose Moroccan father abandoned the family when she was a child to overcome her feelings of sadness and uprooting. Hafid, whose mother tongue is Catalan, says that "I talk about issues such as loneliness in a hyperconnected society", about frustration and about the "sensation of identity of being in no man's land". Jackals deals with “anger management, through three characters who suffer from intermittent explosive disorder”. Influenced by authors such as Nick Drnaso, Chris Ware or Alison Bechdel, her work allows us to glimpse an international projection. "I intend that the reader approaches the abyss," she says.
The novelist Mohamed El Morabet (Alhucemas, 1983) has just published The Winter of the Goldfinches (Galaxia Gutenberg), which he defines as "an allegation of simple life and humble everyday life, which deals with issues such as mental health and poverty". Spanish is his literary language and Amazigh is his native language. "My first novel, An Abandoned Solar, is carried out by a translator who faces the problem that his native Amazigh has no written tradition." “I hope that my novels are not about emigrants – he says – but that they have emigration as a background”.
The Valencian poet Paloma Chen (Alicante, 1999) is the author of Invocation to the Silent Majorities (Letraversal), “a striptease where I show my vulnerability, that of being a Chinese girl in Spain. I grew up dragging the identity conflict and I have looked for it in many artists”. She is the daughter of Chinese parents, owners of a restaurant that appears in her work, her mother tongue is Spanish, but she introduces phrases in Chinese in her poems "that give a confused feeling, of lost in translation" . Chen also has a notable career as a journalist (see her report Crecer en un chino available on her website) and she considers herself a disciple of great Latin American chroniclers such as Leila Guerriero and Julio Villanueva Chang. Her work deals with urban legends such as dogs used for food and various stereotypes.
The Spanish pavilion at the fair was packed with two tributes to deceased writers. His French and German editors spoke about Javier Marías, as well as his translator in this country, Susanne Lange. And Carlos Ruiz Zafón, the best-selling Spanish author, shared the novelist Dolores Redondo ("I am a writer thanks to Zafón, who opened new paths"), his publishers Emili Rosales (for whom "the Cemetery of Forgotten Books is the icon most recognizable figure in 21st century literature”) and Hans Jürgen Balmes (“he liked to take me to see buildings in Los Angeles”) and the journalist Sergio Vila-Sanjuán, who was with Zafón in Frankfurt 19 years ago and who played an important role in publicizing The Shadow of the Wind.
