The night it all begins

Barcelona is, today, the city in the world with the highest density of writers per square meter, scattered throughout all its streets.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
22 April 2023 Saturday 16:24
31 Reads
The night it all begins

Barcelona is, today, the city in the world with the highest density of writers per square meter, scattered throughout all its streets. It is an unparalleled phenomenon –a whole city, in a single day– that for ten years has had a prelude to the party organized by this newspaper and that, in an exercise of intense concentration –a few hours, in a single hotel– contains the germ that unfolds like a big bang the next day. El Alma, without a doubt, is already one of the hotel establishments most trodden on by writers, perhaps only surpassed by the mythical Frankfurter Hof and on a par with the Hilton in Guadalajara.

The authors lose, in the groups, their surnames (literary, best-seller, genre, media, influencer, cryptic, essayist...), and unexpected meetings and conversations take place that would have been impossible with the heat of the next day and the tight signature marathons at different points. The same thing happens with publishers: we see CEOs of large multinational corporations converse with people who have just set up a new publishing house in their bedroom at home (because the bedroom is the equivalent of the garage in the mythical tales of technology companies).

Tomorrow (or the day after) the chronicles will say that, in a single Sant Jordi, more than 22 million euros or a similar amount have been invoiced (another figure that nobody equals). But it's not that, it's not the millions. Sant Jordi is us.