The phrase is so good that I do not write it down because I will remember it for sure. It was just said by the editor Ramon Mas on the stage of the Sala Vol, during the celebration of the tenth anniversary of Males Herbes, after Ricard Planas and the latest addition to the label, Nura Nieto, spoke. The three have highlighted the good vibes that are breathed at the party and the happiness that their project has given them. When they started, they had a reputation for only posting to friends.
But what happens is that they become friends with the people they work with. Also from colleagues. Among the guests is Rosa Rey, from Angle, full of Nobel Prize for Annie Ernaux, in her catalogue; Aniol Rafel, from Periscopi, a publishing house that is also celebrating its tenth anniversary; Eugènia Broggi, from L'Altra, who will be DJing in a while; There is Maria Bohigas and Alex Dardik, from Club Editor, who have just presented Mister Evasió by Blai Bonet at La Ciutat Invisible.
Others, like Luis Solano, from Libros del Asteroides, or Paula Kuffer, arrive after the presentation of the new collection Collateral Effects, from the Argentine Caja Negra. It has been in Rot Studio, an industrial premises in the same area of Poblenou, and has had the editors Ezequiel Fanego and Malena Rey, as well as a good assortment of beers and wines. In the end, several people –including Toni Navarro, La Plebeya– have improvised a topless reading, while in Vol, Roger Peláez was hoarse singing anachronistic songs about cocks and straws.
Diana Hernández greets Marina Espasa. Santiago Tobón arrives, from Sixth Floor, who has come from Madrid for the Liber. In the classical gloom of concert halls I see Eva Piquer, Ada Castells, Albert Pijuan, Míriam Cano, Francesc Bombí-Vilaseca, Sebastià Jovani, Borja Bagunyà (impatient to present the new book by Pablo Katchadjian from Buenos Aires). I have a medium in hand and I can't write down Mas's brilliant phrase, which will title this chronicle. Nothing happens. It is so powerful that I will not forget it.
Within a few days, the cultural journalist Josep Massot will point out that this supergeneration of independent publishers began in part with Alpha Decay, which Enric Cucurella and Diana Zaforteza founded in 2004. She would create the Alfabia label in 2008. Her death, at 44 years old, has impacted the sector. Francesc Serés was commenting on it shortly after presenting La menida mes bonica, a chronicle about the disappointment of the process published in Proa, in a packed Windows.
On the same Tuesday, at the same time, there were several other literary events in Barcelona, and all of them were packed to the brim. For example, at Bernat, the deputy director of La Vanguardia, Miquel Molina, signed forty copies of Siete dias en la Riviera (Cathedral).
He was accompanied by Carlos Zanón and Pilar Romera. Molina read an open letter to the ministers Bruno Le Maire and Roselyn Bachelot, proposing that Villa Nellcote be confiscated from the Russian oligarch Viktor Rashnikov and become part of the French – therefore European – heritage to become a cultural center on history of rock and a museum dedicated to the stay of the Rolling Stones on the Côte d'Azur in 1971.
Meanwhile, about a thousand people listened to the historians Yuval Noah Harari and Rutger Bregman, and then to the Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich, in the Joan Coromines square, which has hosted several multitudinous events during the Barcelona Biennale of Thought. The poet Anna Gual was talking with Anna Guitart about Les ocultacions (Proa), Miquel de Palol prize 2022, in the Ona, where Maria de la Pau Janer had just presented Tots els noms d'Helena (Columna) with Eduard Pujol and a large audience different But on Tuesday, in addition, Santiago Lorenzo talked about his Tostonazo (Blackie Books) with Miqui Otero on the terrace of La Central. And the illustrator Gustavo Ariel Rosemffet Gusti and the Cavall Fort magazine won the Maria Rius en la Laie award.
More signs that the scene is buzzing: the digital short story magazine Paper de Vidre , edited by Tina Vallès and Guillem Miralles, celebrated its 20th anniversary on Friday at Obaga, with a toast and readings (I don't know that topless reading ) by Cristina Garcia, Xavier Ballester and Ferran Ràfols. And if today is Santa Teresa, tonight the Planet is delivered. Ramon Mas's phrase was round to title this. But no matter how many times I give it, there is no way to remember it.
