The last International Book Fair of Guadalajara closed with a audience record and a few words by Mercè Rodoreda: The flowers will come. The phrase of a story by the Catalan writer is the motto that the commissioner, the journalist Anna Guitart, has chosen for the programming of Barcelona as a guest of honor of the great appointment of the Mexican letters. From November 29 to December 7, more than 60 writers will travel to the fair. The objective, Guitart explained in the presentation of the activities this Wednesday, is to “explain the current literary Barcelona, as if the people who write in Barcelona or Barcelona in any language one day in front of the cathedral were convened and we took a photo.”
The will to talk about the now manifests in the selection of the guest authors, who does not intend to beat the records of the 2024 delegation of Spain, which was invited country in that edition, but to offer a sample of the diversity of the panorama. It includes writers in Catalan, Spanish and even English (Colm Tóibín, who is Irish but lived and wrote about Barcelona); Super Survents such as Xavier Bosch, Javier Cercas or Regina Rodríguez Sirvent, but also a selection of authors that the Mexican reader will surely discover there, such as Elisenda Solsona, Kiko Amat or Eduard Olesti. Also poets such as Adrià Targa, Josep Pedrals or Juana Dolores; playwrights like Sergi Belbel; and writers of trajectories recognized as Mercè Ibarz or Rafael Argullol. Two guests of honor will also attend: Eduardo Mendoza and Joan Manuel Serrat. Guitart remarks that it has been avoided that last year’s authors repeat and that a condition for the selection is that they have their work published in Spanish. Therefore, in collaboration with the Institut Ramon Llull, he has worked to boost and finance new translations.
“That Barcelona is the guest of honor in this edition is no accident,” says Marisol Schulz, director of the FIL, “is the manifestation of a deep, historical and endearing relationship between two worlds that share imagination and cultural vocation.” Like her, the president of the FIL, Trinidad Padilla López, and the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, present at the press conference for the presentation of the program, have highlighted the historical literary link between Barcelona and Mexico: by the call boom Latin American, but also for Republican Catalan writers exiled in Mexico. Therefore, despite its current approach, the fair also intends to include a daily tribute to an important figure. They will be Carmen Balcells, Joan Brossa, Pere Calders, Ana María Matute, Mercè Rodoreda, Montserrat Roig, Manuel Vázquez Montalbán and Jacint Verdaguer.
A good part of Barcelona’s programming will be deployed in the pavilion of the invited city, which is right at the entrance of the fair, “for better and for worse,” according to Guitart: “Everyone must pass by and, according to the audience record last year, that implies more than 90,000 people in nine days. The Pavilion, designed by the Fàbric and Santiago de León architecture office Space publishedrecreates a large place with a facade with portal that remembers the Plaza del Rey de Barcelona. The space will include a bookstore and an auditorium for 120 people. But beyond this epicenter, the programming will be extended throughout the fair and will go beyond literature.
Barcelona will also participate in the Fil Science program with guests such as Mara Dierssen or Toni Pou; In Fil thought, a program from the University of Guadalajara, with authors such as Fina Birulés or Gabriel Ventura, chosen in collaboration with the CCCB, and in the FIL Children. A group of city musicians will also participate in the Forum Fil program, which offers large format concerts in a space with capacity for 3,000 people. Among them, Rigoberta Bandini, Roger plus I Cobla Sant Jordi or Mushkaa. It is also tradition that the guest city chooses the chef of inaugural food. The commission has been for Gerard Bellver, owner of the Jiribilla restaurant, in the Sant Antoni neighborhood.
Beyond the fairgrounds, Barcelona will contribute three shows and two exhibitions to the city. In the performing arts section, they will be represented Sonoma, of the La Veronal dance company; Yeah, grass by Josep Maria Miró, and a dramatized reading of The Diamond Square, by Mercè Rodoreda, who starts from the show that Carlota uploaded premiered in the National Theater of Catalonia and will feature Mexican actresses. And in the Museum of Arts of the University of Guadalajara and in the Cabañas Museum two original exhibitions can be visited: Barcelona’s books, Commissioned by Enric Jardí, which claims the editorial design in Barcelona from more than 300 covers, and Women -50 years of struggles will come in the streets of Barcelona, Commissioned by Ingrid Guardiola, Mita Casacuberta and Anna María Church, who deals with the relationship of the writers with the public space. Anna Guitart states that the will of the program in the FIL is that it has “cultural benefits for the city, and that is why these exhibitions will travel after the fair to Barcelona.”