Barcelona is preparing for its visit to the Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL), which it will attend in this edition as a guest of honor, which will be attended by the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature 2025, Eduardo Mendoza, and other authors such as Javier Cercas and Juan Pablo Villalobos.
Between November 29 and December 7, the Spanish city will display an extensive program of literary, musical, artistic, gastronomic, cinematographic and scientific activities at this fair, the largest gathering of the publishing world in Spanish.
Curated by journalist Anna Guitart, the Barcelona program has as its motto ‘Vindran les flors’ (The flowers will come, in Spanish), a nod to the fact that Guadalajara is the city of roses, as is Barcelona on Sant Jordi’s day, April 23.
On this date, when International Book Day is also celebrated, it is tradition in Barcelona to exchange a book and a rose with loved ones.
The city pavilion at the FIL has a 1,183 square meter space inspired by arcaded plazas, a very typical construction in Spain, which will have a large bookstore with 10,000 books linked in some way to the city, and an auditorium for 120 people.
“The objective is to project today’s Barcelona, with figures of recognized trajectory and also with new voices aimed at Mexican readers,” said Guitart, which is why the invited writers belong to different generations who work in various genres, such as novels, essays, short stories or poetry, mainly in Catalan and Spanish.
Thus, the guests also include Carme Riera, Cristina Fernández Cubas, Rafael Argulllol, Andreu Martín, Carlos Zanón, Kiko Amat, Juana Dolores, Miqui Otero, Susanna Rafart, Gemma Ruiz, Montse Albets, Xavier Bosch, Sílvia Soler and Màrius Serra.
Additional information: The Guadalajara International Book Fair breaks linguistic barriers by having Barcelona as its ‘special’ guest
Foreign writers linked to Barcelona have also been invited, such as the Irish Colm Tóibín or the Mexican Juan Pablo Villalobos, who will talk about Latin American literature in the Catalan capital.
Joan Manuel Serrat and other star guests
The Barcelona presence will be extended to other programs of the Mexican fair, such as FIL Ciencia, FIL Pensamiento or FIL Forum, within the framework of which a large-format show will be offered each night and will feature performances by the singer Rigoberta Bandini or the group Love of Lesbian.
The singer-songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat, with a personal connection with Mexico, will be the protagonist along with the Mexican author Benito Taibo of the traditional meeting “A thousand young people with…”.
In performing arts, Barcelona’s presence will extend to various spaces in Guadalajara with three shows, including ‘Sonoma’, by the La Veronal dance company.
In terms of visual arts, the Museum of Arts of the University of Guadalajara (MUSA) and the Cabañas Museum will host two unpublished exhibitions: ‘The Books of Barcelona’, which covers the history of editorial design in the city of Barcelona; and ‘Women will come-150 years of struggles in the streets of Barcelona’.
Trained in some of the great Spanish restaurants and established in Mexico for 28 years, the Barcelona chef Gerard Bellver (Jiribilla restaurant) will merge the gastronomy of his homeland and that of Mexico at the inaugural meal and at the gastronomic festival to be held at the Barceló Hotel.
With information from EFE
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