“We hope that machines think and reflect in Spanish”. It is not about the character of a science-fiction novel, but about the declarations of the Minister of Culture, Miquel Iceta, yesterday, at the Frankfurt book fair, where the Spanish Government, represented by its first vice-president, Nadia Calviño, chest in the presentation of the PERTE plan for which it allocates 1,100 million euros of the European Union's Covid funds to various measures to create "a new language economy", especially in ensuring that artificial intelligence expresses itself adequately in the Cervantes language.
A curious moment occurred when Iceta, taking advantage of the literary nature of the environment, said: “PERTE that I love you PERTE”, paraphrasing Lorca, to which the director of the Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero, replied: “I am very happy to see like this to the minister because, when he had his doubts about this, what he would say was: 'PERTE, I don't want to PERTE, PERTE!', he said, singing to the music of Vete, the song by Los Amaya.
García Montero graphically explained the importance of dealing with these issues: "If you say 'I'm sad' to Siri, she replies: 'I'm going to give you a hug.' Instead, her Russian equivalent of her replies: 'No one told you it was easy.' For us it is important that the AI promotes democratic values and respects the diversity of Spanish and the other languages of the State”.
Calviño, for her part, used to going to Frankfurt for international economic meetings, was pleased to be at a cultural event this time and stated that “Spain is very advanced in physical infrastructures, and we have to continue advancing in digital infrastructures, where our growth is one of the highest and we must not stop it”.
Shortly after, the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenski, addressed "the international book community", in a message recorded the day before on video from his office and which was broadcast in the great auditorium of the fair. In a khaki shirt, Zelensky reminded representatives of the publishing world from 29 countries that "there are two countries absent here today, Russia and Iran, places where culture is destroyed as well as lives and essential goods, houses, sources of energy... Russia exports death, not culture, like you”. And he exhorted his audience to "publish books that break ignorance or simple indifference to what happens here."
The person in charge of responding to Zelenski was the Catalan Jesús Badenes, director of the Grupo Planeta bookstore division, who stressed that "freedom and democracy, as we know them today, are a product of thought and writing." And he quoted Don Quixote in Spanish: “Liberty, dear Sancho, is one of the most precious gifts that the heavens gave men; The treasures that the earth holds nor the sea conceals cannot be equaled with it; for freedom, as well as for honor, one can and must risk life”.
In a tribute to the agent Carmen Balcells, the writers Carme Riera and Rosa Montero highlighted the fundamental role she had in ensuring that book contracts had an expiration date. Riera said that, before meeting Balcells, she did not charge anything for her successful Te deix, amor, la mar com a penyora because that way her publisher, Alfonso Carlos Comín, as he told her, "could publish other authors with the profits" . And Montero revealed that, the day Balcells agreed to represent her, she told him "I have to ask you an essential question:" What do you prefer, money or glory?
The Minister of Culture, Natàlia Garriga, in the toast of the Catalan stand, pointed out "the solid and constant presence at international level" of Catalan literature, present at the fair with 14 authors and more than 50 publishing houses.
A table also honored Almudena Grandes. Among the authors present yesterday, Enrique Vila-Matas and Arturo Pérez-Reverte stood out, who, in dialogue with Sergio Vila-Sanjuán, recalled the one they held at the 1991 fair, together with Ken Follett, claiming the contribution of the European bestseller "that now we can say that it has enriched the pure and simple action of the Anglo-Saxon tradition, raising the level”.
