It’s Sant Jordi already. Yes, yes, you must think that I have drunk my understanding, but if you look at the literary agendas, you will see that everything is accelerating and multiplying, with bookstores hosting simultaneous and (quite) multitudinous events. On Wednesday, at the Ona bookstore, they do one of these doubles. On the one hand, Mariàngela Vilallonga, Joan Sala and Màrius Serra present Partidària de la vida. Articles, conferences, interviews (Comanegra), by Aurora Bertrana. The audience – with writers such as Maria Barbal, Ramon Solsona, Susanna Rafart or Quim Curbet – that fills it is young, with accumulated youth, jokes Serra, who went deeply into Bertrana recommended by Vilallonga – responsible for the edition of volume – when he was looking for documentation for his novel Nothing is perfect in Hawaii (Proa, 2016). Sala recalls that “it is only fair to thank Vilallonga that as Minister of Culture” he brought together for the first time the tripartite table so that the budget allocated to culture gradually reaches 2% (the driving group Actua Cultura and the Ministries of Culture and Economy). Among all three, they emphasize the modernity of Bertrana, who “except when he talks about feminism, ages very well”, and beyond the exotic descriptions he writes about current issues. Serra assures that some articles could be published today. what’s a joke Read his column today, wow… Cellist Anna Llorens opens and closes the event with two classical jazz pieces, recalling Bertrana’s other passion, which as a musician formed orchestras and gave concerts.
During the presentation, people pass by who don’t stop, because they go to the Bookeria room, which is at the back of the bookstore, full of young people – old, now, if we discount parents or the journalist Toni Piqué -. Patrick Urbano presents La garota entre les dents (Columna), the first foray into the narrative of Pau Cusí, who has written eight stories in which dark humor coexists with violence, absurdity and tourism on the Costa Brava. And lots of sex, too. Cusí, screenwriter, is Júlia Canet’s latest signing for the Brunzits collection designed for and for young people. Cousí quotes Foster Wallace and talks about the imposture on the networks, where “there are many people who are very eager to grind, but there is no need to grind on Twitter”.
I leave to run to the Horiginal, to the Deskomunal, where they honor Lis Costa in a multitudinous recital, above and below the stage, from before, with a lot of people going up and remembering the person responsible for this archive audiovisual that Enric Casasses defines as “the Alcover-Moll of live poetry”, although Josep Pedrals says so on stage, and Pep Blay, Mireia Calafell, Josep Maria Jordana pass by – read a few of the dreams from the newspaper that Costa–, Eduard Escoffet, David Caño, Núria Martínez-Vernis and Víctor Bonet, Miriam Reyes, Gerard Altaió, Josep Ramon Roig, Martí Sales, Jordi Teixidó, Xavier Theros, Joan Vinuesa, Pia Sommer and David Ymbernon.. And among the audience, in addition to the regulars, there are, among others, Sito Subirats, Francesca Llopis, Marc Valls, Glòria Bordons or Joan de Sola and Pere Almeda –director of Literature and director of the Ramon Llull Institute–. A memorable event.
The next day, Genie Espinosa presents her latest book, White Tauró (Finestres/Sapristi) at Finestres d’Art i Còmic with Flavita Banana, and the space becomes small as they talk about this graphic novel about grief , which Flavita defines as a scary book and Espinosa as a road movie. There is the publisher Montserrat Terrones and, among others, the illustrators Chamo San or Juan Carlos Bonache, and Sergi Martínez, until recently a bookseller in Calonge. Espinosa and Flavita talk about the creative process to get to the book – with Easter eggs ready for the attentive reader -, about the importance of music and the situation of women in the sector, with the impostor syndrome playing its part .
When it finishes I run to the Calders, where Ramon Mas has presented Els murs invisibles (L’Altra) with Aïda Camprubí. Indeed, it is already late. Well, not quite, because there is still the concert, first with Laura Crehuet (Les Cruet) and then Èric Fuentes (The Unfinished Sympathy). Meeting of friends like his partner in Males Herbes Ricard Planas, or Eugènia Broggi, Javier Calvo, Rosa Rey, Ferran Garcia (the two, the writer and the artist), Nura Nieto, Albert Pijuan, Josep Maria Argemí, Roser Cabré-Verdiell, Guillem H. Pongiluppi and a very long list of others – some were already the evening before the Horiginal – in a party as exciting as the book – well, maybe not so much either -.
