A pandemic and several vaccines later, like other springs, almost stepping on summer, the booksellers have taken the books for a walk to the Madrid’s Retiro Park. The fair has recovered its usual appearance, although this time, skipping the weather script, the rain has not appeared. 17 days of color and heat for a party that closes on Sunday.
In Weekly report This Saturday we are approaching that traditional festival of books, which stopped being celebrated in 2020, due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in our lives and that last year had an edition still touched by the limitations caused by the virus.
Now, in a big way, with more desire for the fair than ever, the Retreat space set up for the long-awaited event has been filled with a public eager to enjoy the good weather and eager to see and buy books.
Until the stands are closed, there will be no official sales figures, but the book industry exudes optimism. The one in 2022 promises to be an unforgettable fair. A total of 3,223 authors have signed copies at the fair, which is an absolute record.
Elvira Lindo: “The readers appreciate that they come to sign”
Among them, the biggest and most popular names in our literature: Rose Montero, Antonio Muñoz Molina, louis landero, Manuel Vilas o elvira cute. We have interviewed the latter for Weekly report and he was happy to have shared his time with the readers again.
“It’s being very special – he tells us – because I think there are a great illusion and emotion in the readers. As soon as you strike a chord a little, you realize that for everyone it has been a return to normality, to freedom. They really appreciate you coming here to sign again, to share experiences. I believe that everyone has the need to tell how they have lived during all this time, in which many things have happened. Emotionally there is something very deep in this.”
Elvira Lindo, who premiered at the fair almost thirty years ago with his child character Manolito Gafotashas signed this year copies of “A corazón abierta”, an autobiographical narrative in which the exciting, and at times picturesque, adventures of the writer’s father are recreated.
Since then he has been on many other occasions leaving his signature to the readers, so he knows that reality well, uncomfortable for many authorsespecially for those less requested by the public.
“You know that you are in a booth – says Elvira – and that you are very exposed and that you are also physically exposed. You hear people’s comments. They don’t realize it because they think you’re at a distance, like you’re on television. Then they comment if they see you younger, if they see you well groomed, if they see that you have a bad face, that your husband is in another booth, that he has more or less tail than you, I don’t know, that they like your blouse, that you’re nice, that you’re smiling, that in a given moment, maybe you are very serious and they say how serious it is. That’s why I I try not to stop smiling at any timebecause I know that each person is going to make a judgment of me by the moment they see me.”
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The pandemic has benefited the sector
Life is full of paradoxes, and the fatality of COVID was good news for the world of book, which is experiencing a moment of sustained growth since the worst days of the pandemic.
In that sense, Chema Garciageneral director of the Spanish edition of the prestigious and centennial magazine Publishers Weekly points out that “actually, the pandemic has greatly benefited the book world. All professionals agree on this and if you ask booksellers they will tell you the same thing: all the time we spent at home made many people reconnect with reading and obviously the book grew. Later there were many doubts on the part of the industry about what was going to happen once the pandemic was over, if we were going to stop reading and return to our previous habits, but it seems not, that the book has stayed with us and that is great news, without a doubt.
After eighty editions, the Madrid Book Fair is directed by a woman. the journalist Eva Orue has been at the forefront of this party of printed paper that is celebrated in the Retiro.
Eva has told us that in the publishing sector women occupy 75% of the jobs. “There are more editors than editors, more women writers than writersmore proofreaders than proofreaders, more translators than translators and more readers than readers, so the fact that a woman came to direct the fair in Madrid I think it was a matter of time, it happened to me, I am happy, but it was one more barrier that has been broken and that had to be broken”.
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‘Tiktokers’, ‘instagramers’ and ‘youtubers’
At the fair, together with the usual writers, those of a lifetime, the Tiktok, Instagram or Youtube stars, around which spectacular queues have formed. In some cases, the police even had to intervene to bring order to the chaos formed by admirersmany called exclusively for the claim of their idol, but others also looking for the book signing.
This circumstance is one of those that fuels optimism for the good health of the paper. Contrary to the predictions of the prophets of the Apocalypse and the diviners of the tribe that at the beginning of the century predicted the sudden death of paper, it resists and advances. It’s not just that readers in e-book have stabilized downwards, is that young people also consume many graphic novels that have no ebook translation by its very nature. Chema Garcia, CEO of Publishers Weekly, points out that the paper is still more than 95% of sales in our country.
In the report of Weekly report We have also interviewed the Aragonese writer Manuel Vilaswho with his works “Ordesa” and “Alegría” has positioned himself among the Spanish authors with the most readers and with a prestige that transcends our borders.
Vilas considers that “the Madrid Book Fair is a very lively representation of what the Spanish people are like. Each reader looks for a certain thing. No two readers are the same. One is interested in crime novels, another is looking for a comic, another, a profound novel. And if you go looking at them somehow, the portrait of a country that I believe fortunately, that has already begun to read and that will continue reading, comes out. And this is perhaps the most interesting novelty.”
Books for all audiences, readers looking for the signature of their favorite writers. A world of words and metaphors, plots, characters, fables and legends. In prose or verse, fiction or essay. Everything is at the fair. See you tomorrow.
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