“If a story only appeals to children and not to adults, it is not a good story,” say Argentine editors Lulu Kirschenbaund and Manuel Rud, founders in Buenos Aires of the Limonero publishing house, an independent imprint dedicated to children’s books that end to disembark in Spain coinciding with the tenth anniversary of its creation. This is the maxim that these two lovers of literature apply in the proposals they launch on the market and that they now want to make reach the Spanish public through their brand new office in Barcelona. Precisely for this Sant Jordi, the publisher will have three titles on display: Everything that happened before you arrived, by Yael Frankel; Impossible, by Catarina Sobral and A Girl with a Pencil, by Federico Levin and Nico Lassalle (illustrations). Books that encourage the pleasure of reading and that are backed by wide recognition in the form of awards.
Limonero arrives with a catalog made up of fifty books that touch on multiple themes and styles, mainly by South American and European authors, but with the desire to create synergies between the Latin American and Spanish audiences. “We consider them indispensable, unique books,” he says. “Works that do not fear the most dissimilar aesthetics or formats,” nor the most complex themes. “There are no children’s themes; only universal,” they say.
The tandem of editors has been working together for 25 years, when they graduated from the Faculty of Letters in Buenos Aires – “we still have good universities in Buenos Aires” – they began to translate, adapt and create educational content for large publishers, especially for the United States. “We ended up saturated with the entire didactic and instrumental aspect of literature,” they say, and that is why they chose to begin a literary path with Limonero just for the pure pleasure of reading.
From that work is the fruit of Everything That Happened Before You Arrived, by Yael Frankel, the publisher’s first book also translated into Catalan, which puts itself in the shoes of the older brother of a baby yet to be born, which he explains to him. everything that is happening before your birth. A book awarded with the Bologna Ragazzi of 2023 in the fiction category, for the naive, frank and sometimes humorous perspective of the little narrator, who with overwhelming clarity offers an interesting point of view on topics such as family, the passage of time or simply something as difficult as lending toys. The illustrations are vague and delightfully childish, including their smudges.
“We are more of a publisher of content than of novelties and we are going to adapt our catalog to Spanish from the peninsula, except for those that are originally from Argentine or South American authors. In these cases we will maintain the peculiarities of the language to enrich the readers’ vocabulary, let’s see how it works for us,” explain Kirschenbaund and Rud. Thus, it will be common to read a vo or tenés, or see how cake is called a cake or a belly is called a panza. A lot of fun if you choose to read it aloud.
“We want to make known in Spain what is being done there – they say, referring to the South American market – but also do the same with what is being done here, where the panorama is innovative and very interesting.” The editors’ intention is to publish 6 to 8 books per year with circulations that will range between 2,000 copies in Spain and 3,000 in Argentina. “And we will see.” We also.
