A bridge between Barcelona and Buenos Aires | Prese …

"The sun, this beauty of sun …!", Could quote the verse of the poet Antonio Machado of the "Sol de invierno" of the Saló de Cent, in the city hall of Barcelona, ​​in the historical center of the city, where it was presented the program that the guest city will offer at the 45th International Book Fair of Buenos Aires, which will take place from Thursday, April 25 to May 13 at La Rural Farm. "Literature is one of the most powerful pillars of our identity, as a country and as a city.We are the publishing capital in Catalan and Spanish, the headquarters of 272 publishers and 40 public libraries". said Mayor Ada Colau, accompanied by Iolanda Batallé, director of the Ramon Llull Institute; and María Teresa Carbano, President of the El Libro Foundation, among other authorities. "A place name can change your life, and Buenos Aires is a very powerful word that makes you dream," Batallé added. The delegation will bring 78 guests, including writer and screenwriter Héctor Lozano, creator of the Merlí series; Carlos Zanón, who will arrive with Problems of Identity, the "reincarnation" of the detective Pepe Carvalho of Manuel Vázquez Montalbán (1939-2003); Clara Usón, laureate of the Sor Juana Prize with The Timid Assbadin; the philosopher and activist Marina Garcés, one of the reference voices of the new left, linked to squat groups; Maite Carranza, winner of the National Prize for Literature for Children and Adolescents; the singer Sílvia Pérez Cruz, as well as a handful of writers to discover as Najat el Hachmi, Spanish narrator of Moroccan origin, author of Lútim Patriarca (The Last Patriarch); Eva Baltasar and illustrator Paula Bonet.

Readers will be able to highlight the notable absences of the Barcelona delegation, Spanish and Catalan writers, such as Enrique Vila-Matas, Eduardo Mendoza, Juan Marsé, Javier Cercas or Quim Monzó. Asked about these absences, the director of the Ramon Llull Institute said that some of these writers had been invited to travel to Buenos Aires, but declined the invitation "for personal reasons." Several Argentineans living in Barcelona will also come to the fair, like the designer Horacio Altuna, who has been living in Sitges since 1982; literary critic and essayist Nora Catelli, exiled by the civico-military dictatorship in 1976; the writer Flavia Company, resident since 1973; and the poet and critic Rosario Edgardo Dobry, who settled in the city in 1986. The "Night of the fair" will be held on Saturday, April 27, day when the entry will be free and free from 21h. the singer Sílvia Pérez Cruz. The show will focus on songs inspired by poems by Federico García Lorca, Maria-Mercè Marçal, Miguel Hernández, Ana María Moix and Feliu Formosa, as well as clbadics from the singer's repertoire.

"Barcelona, ​​literary city" will be the motto that will bring together all the programmed activities, including the theatrical performance of the playwright and writer Marc Caellas, "The belly of the writers", with reflections on what the authors eat and drink and on the influences who as a result. his writing. In the stand of 200 square meters, built with long wooden boards, a half horse between modernism and Ikea aesthetics, you can hear the original voice of several poets; but it will also have a small auditorium and a large library with a fund of 10,000 copies, where 700 titles of 350 authors will be exposed and can be sold. Batallé, by Ramon Llull, baderted that the participation of Barcelona in Buenos Aires should be a turning point in the increase of Catalan translations of authors in Catalan, coeditions and in the improvement of the mechanisms of distribution of houses of Catalan edition.

There will be three samples, two at the exhibition grounds and one in town. The first, organized by Glòria Gorchs and Pep Molist, offers a tour of the Catalan capital through 32 illustrations of pages of books from different eras. Another, "Literature Catalan al món", organized by Julià Guillamon, will establish original links between international authors and Catalan narrators. Guillamon is himself responsible for "Llibres de anada i tornada", an exhibition that connects Barcelona's Catalonia bookshop with the publishers Sudamericana and Edhasa, through the character of Antoni López Llausàs, a Catalan immigrant to Argentina who was the main responsible the three institutions and the publisher, among many others, of Julio Cortázar and Gabriel García Márquez.

The historical plot that unites Barcelona and Buenos Aires is marked by the dual path of the exiles: the European migrations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and Republican exiles arrived in Argentina after the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), with Argentine exiles in Barcelona who fled the civil-military dictatorship and those fleeing Argentina's successive economic crises, ranging from hyperinflation to December 2001. "Crossed exiles are sad and painful moments because, having to leave the country makes you carry a load of melancholy, this is why, this time, we will celebrate the richness which is the sediment of this first difficult and painful moment, the cultural characteristics left in each country by those who have moved, "said Teresa Carballo, director of the El Libro Foundation. She herself moved with her family to Barcelona in 1982, when the Malvinas war broke out, and she lived "a family and professional life". The president of the El Libro Foundation has taken for granted the "exceptional" role that Barcelona will play. "Both cities are sympathetic and we are on the road to an event that will be successful and transcendent," concluded Carbano.