This year’s guest of honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair, Oct. 19 – 23, is Spain and its literatures.
There is more information on the book fair on their official website.
More information on the special program on Spanish literature and culture can be found here.
The official inauguration ceremony, where the Spanish king and queen will be present, can be watched on the book fair’s website on 18 Oct at 5 pm CEST.
In an article in La Vanguardia newspaper Xavi Ayén mentioned that since 2019 and with subsidies by the Spanish government, 690 titles have been translated from Spanish (and Catalan, Basque, Galician) into German; of these have been published 171 titles in 2022 alone. Ayén maintains that there is a big interest among the German reading public for young authors and those with a political background that reflect the crisis. This doesn’t show yet on the list of those authors with the biggest sales, who have also been the subject of some of this blog’s posts:
Carlos Ruiz Zafón (posts from 2020 and 2016)
Javier Marías (many posts, probably the only contemporary author whose whole work has been translated);
Maria Barbal (mentioned in posts from 2015 (II), 2015(I), and 2014), a contemporary Catalan author who, like Jaume Cabré, probably earns more from the translations than from the sales at home;
Dolores Redondo (posts from 2016 and 2014)
Fernando Aramburu (posts from 2018 and 2016 ) who has lived in Germany since the 1980s;
Rafael Chirbes (posts from 2015 and 2013).
SOURCE: article by Xavi Ayén in La Vanguardia, 15 Oct 2022, pp. 34-35 [printed edition]
literary rambles 