Today, Book Day 2023, the day of Sant Jordi, patron saint of Catalonia, is the first in which Carmen Balcells has a place named after her in Barcelona. Carmen Balcells, the pope of letters, the maker of publishing miracles, the alchemist of the book, the paper woman, the voracious reader, the lady in white in her last public appearances, finally has in her city a marble plaque with his name. It is under some pine trees, in the Verneda neighborhood, next to Carrer Concili de Trento.
Apparently, at the City Council, they first thought of removing from the nomenclature this name of religious reference with not too happy connotations, with tuff of the dictatorial era, and change it to that of Carmen Balcells. But this harmed the neighbors, since changing the name of a street implies numerous legal inconveniences, loss of time and also money, something that Balcells, so efficient and decisive, would not have liked at all.
For all this, it was finally decided to place the commemorative plaque in a small square, in the redoubt formed by the tops of a few trees and under the baton of the chirping birds, which last March 31 , the day of the inauguration, a sound festival was dedicated to him.
I suppose that this place was chosen, in the Verneda neighborhood, far from the flats where Balcells lived or had his operations centers, because of its proximity to the GarcÃa Márquez library. Which Carmen Balcells would have liked.
With GarcÃa Márquez Balcells he shared life and literature. During the years when he was a neighbor of Barcelona they became inseparable. He was, without a doubt, his favorite author, with whom he shared the most complicity and affection. So much so that the seductive Gabo one day asked her: “Do you love me, Carmen?”. And she, with her usual sense of humor, replied: “I can’t answer you. You are 36.2% of the agency’s total turnover”.
I have always thought that, indeed, the agency without GarcÃa Márquez would have been different. But GarcÃa Márquez without the agency too. That’s why he wrote: “My life’s dream is to set up a literary agency and have an author like me.”
I am also sure that the great agent would have liked to be remembered next to a library, as she assured that there is no pleasure comparable to reading. Reading is power, he added, borrowing the sentence from his collaborator, Carina Pons. In addition to reading, it means establishing a conversation with the dead and listening to the dead with their eyes. Libraries offer us, better than any other space, this possibility.
If, as Borges imagined, it is true that paradise, heaven, is a great library, I am sure that Carmen Balcells feels quite good there, even if she regrets that this great center that she wanted Barcelona to house, with its archive and that of the writers she represented, a collection of books and cultural possibilities, called Barcelona Latinitatis Patria has not had the necessary support from the authorities.
It seems to me that Sant Jordi’s day, the day of the book and of the rose – flowers, more especially yellow roses, better, also Gabo’s favourites, were another passion of Carmen’s, who gave away dozens of them -, it is auspicious because the agent’s friends insist again and again that the city welcomes Balcells’ dream: the great project she designed to turn Barcelona into the world book capital.
