Everything is ready. Spanish culture prepares its great party in Germany. The most important book fair in the world, the one in Frankfurt –from October 19 to 23–, has Spain as its guest country, which has not happened since 1991, with the pre-Olympic euphoria, and it will be a great showcase to the world. The Government has taken it as "a State project" and has invested 12 million euros in the entire operation.
It is not just about the five days that the fair lasts, but about a battery of measures that have been deployed over the last four years. Beyond the image operation, the presence in Frankfurt always leads to an increase in book translations from the guest country, not only in Germany but throughout the world. And, indeed, the presence of Spanish books in German bookstores is, at the moment, the largest in history. The translation aid granted by the Government has worked a multiplier miracle, with 690 titles that have benefited from the 3 million euros invested (since 2019) to pay for translations. The funds come from the Ministry of Culture (which increased them by 45%) and Acción Cultural Española (ACE, dependent on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs). In 2022 alone, a whopping 171 books have been released.
What interests Germans in Spanish literature? One indicator is to see who are the authors who have seen more than one of their titles published in 2022, at the request of the German publishers who benefited from the aid: Elvira Sastre, Manuel Chaves Nogales, Rafael Chirbes, Javier Marías, Dolores Redondo, Juan Marsé and, in Catalan, Maria Barbal. German versions of books by Najat El Hachmi, Kiko Amat, Santiago Lorenzo, Javier Cercas, Milena Busquets, Andrea Abreu, Juan Gómez Jurado, Juan Gómez Bárcena, Gabi Martínez, José Carlos Llop, Aroa Moreno Durán, Jesús Carrasco, Antonio Muñoz Molina, Miqui Otero, Sara Mesa, Elena Medel, Enrique Vila-Matas, Bernardo Atxaga, Sergio del Molino, José Ovejero, Almudena Grandes, Fernando Aramburu, Carmen Laforet and Leonardo Padura (who has had Spanish nationality since the 2011). In the field of essays, María Elvira Roca Barea's Imperiofobia and titles by César Rendueles and Marina Garcés stand out, adding to the boom by Irene Vallejo. In Catalan, Quim Monzó, Anna Ballbona and Víctor Català.
The Spanish program in Frankfurt includes, in addition to more than 50 round tables (an average of ten a day), a good number of artistic exhibitions (focused on contemporary creators) and musical performances ranging from Niño de Elche to Sílvia Pérez Cruz. The kick-off will be given by the king and queen of Spain, on the 18th, when they inaugurate the 2,000 square meters of the Spanish Pavilion, with speeches by Irene Vallejo and Antonio Muñoz Molina. On the 23rd, the Galician Manuel Rivas will be in charge of closing the fair and handing over the baton to Slovenia, the guest country of 2023.
The will of the organizers is to put aside any exotic image and focus on modernity. Susanne Lange, translator of Don Quixote into German, laments that "there was a fairly long time when German readers were not very interested in Spanish: Rosa Chacel and Juan Benet, for example, are not complete or they arrived late and were later discontinued. . It is a pity that, unlike what happens with French literature, a canon of Spanish literature has not been created here. Today there is great interest, above all, in young women writers and authors with a political background who reflect the crisis, with names like Elena Medel, Andrea Abreu, Isaac Rosa or Cristina Morales”. Names to which we must add those of Irene Solà, in Catalan, Aroa Moreno Durán or Ana Iris Simón. And Latin Americans like Samanta Schweblin, Mariana Enríquez, Fernanda Melchor, Karina Sainz Borgo, Mónica Ojeda…
In the consecrated, Javier Marías reigns, "almost the only one of the contemporaries with everything translated," says Lange, who also cites Rafael Chirbes or Fernando Aramburu, "who grants many interviews in German, which greatly helps his promotion." In the commercial section, Carlos Ruiz Zafón is the king, followed by Arturo Pérez-Reverte.
In the 1990s, there was a boom in Spanish literature, with names like Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Javier Marías, Eduardo Mendoza, Almudena Grandes, Luis Sepúlveda, Enrique Vila-Matas and Félix de Azúa. Among the most recent phenomena, mention is made, above all, of the case of the Chilean Roberto Bolaño and the strong presence of Fernando Aramburu, a Basque resident in Germany.
Christian Hansen, Bolaño's translator, maintains that “the priority interest of publishers, beyond this fair, is for Latin America, they don't ask me about authors from the peninsula. I think we lack the historical foundation, a clear idea of what Spanish literature is, to fuel interest in the present. Readers wonder where to look for authors in Spanish because there is no longer, as before, a clear reference publisher of Spanish and Latin American, which was Suhrkamp”.
