Sant Jordi combats Catalan uncertainty with a happy bath of books

The Diada de Sant Jordi, the great festival of the book and the rose in Catalonia, triumphed this Tuesday over the atmosphere of uncertainty that looms particularly over a society, the Catalan one, subject to considerable political, environmental and even sporting tensions. The day has left aside (as much as possible) the pre-electoral tension of the regional elections of May 12, the alarming issue of the drought (it has even rained!) and the discouraging season of FC Barcelona (and the deflation of Girona) and has focused on books. Books, many books, in Catalan and Spanish, to combat uncertainty and restlessness, to build a wall or a bridge of paper, of hope and celebration, in front of and on the things that worry and overwhelm (also to reflect serenely on they).

There has also been space for the memory of those who were regulars at the event and who are no longer here: Ibáñez, who only a year ago still dedicated his Mortadelo and Filemón books with drawings; Almudena Grandes, who has smiled at passersby since the album cover Almudena on the stalls; Javier Marías, evoked in every writer who slowly unscrewed the cap of his pen to sign. Once again, the miracle of Sant Jordi has materialized: people have gone out to buy books (and roses) as if there were no tomorrow, books of everything, from the latest novelty to All power to the Soviets, of Lenin, passing through the resounding Philosophy is the dick. And the writers, in their hundreds, you have to see how many!, have attended astonished, almost pinching themselves, at the spectacle of a day in which they, signing their works and allowing themselves to be photographed like stars of film and music, have been the protagonists.

In Barcelona, ​​where the Diada takes on an extraordinarily massive character, the day began after a night and early morning of rain with a radiant day – at noon a downpour fell that passed shortly afterwards, leaving a trail of rose petals on the ground and wet books (!), so that the sun could shine again—although very cold, and with a huge traffic jam. The transformation of the city center into a huge pedestrian “super island” dedicated to books has turned the adjacent streets into real traps for vehicles.

The traditional breakfast offered by the city council to participating writers, editors and booksellers has served to warm up their engines (and bodies). Some 350 people have reported a similar number of units of the famous municipal cream chucho that has survived mayors of such different stripes. There was an atmosphere of expectation and excitement. “My first time was with Melville,” Rodrigo Fresán has been heard to say polysemically, at the time wearing a sailor’s cap that gave him the appearance of an overgrown cabin boy. A little. Wow, who signed the most? She was referring, of course, to her novel Melvill (sic)about the creator of Moby Dick.

Mayor Jaume Collboni has highlighted the recovery of the traditional Ramblas for the festival in line with the effort to preserve the cultural spirit of an iconic artery of the city, and has praised the love of books, and, surprisingly, love to dry. Next, the award-winning translator Marta Pera has passionately defended her profession, citing Faulkner, Goethe or Pushkin (“translators are the pack mules of culture,” said the Russian). The subsequent rout (not to quote the classics but because of the 24-hour Le Mans syndrome in a literary version, “everyone at their posts!”) has coincided with some streets that were already beginning to fill with strollers-shoppers. Many students with free time and some with clear literary ideas (a young man in La Central: “I’m going to buy a company one to earn money”).

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The whole city does its part in the party: in the Revolver record window, Guns n’Roses LP. Dragons here and there. Omnipresent roses, of all colors, from bizum, on sale, luxury, pre-Raphaelite (Au Nom de la Rose), or crossing the city in Glove. Crowds of people with books in a joyous investment of Fahrenheit 451. To highlight among the many images that the day leaves, the scenic La Cubana booth with the book about her character Teresina; the guy who ate a hamburger in the long line for Pablo Vierci (one of the winners) so he could dedicate his resurrection to him The Snow Society, and the happy conjunction—for the public who did not stop photographing them at the Fnac stands—of the media Carlos Sobera and Juan del Val (“how handsome and how smart, the opposite of my husband, hey,” she has been honest with her friend an admirer in the signing line Bocabesada). Santiago Posteguillo (another of the winners of the day) also had long lines, greeted by more than one with an appropriate “hail, Caesar!” and that has given this newspaper a first: perhaps instead of six novels about Julius Caesar (it has two) it has been seven, even if the Ides of March have to be delayed. On the other historical side of Rome, Roberto Corral, Edhasa Prize winner, signed his novel about the Empress Gala Placidia. Also from Romans is another of the phrases of the day (for those who understand Latin), at the Desperta Ferro booth: “The Acquaintance”; worthy of a Pompeian graffiti.

At seven thirty in the afternoon, the party did not subside. In a crowded Laie bookstore, bookseller Lluis Morral expressed his satisfaction. “Very good Sant Jordi, the street has become a little loose with the downpour, but then people have returned en masse. Very happy, yes.”

Day of new and old books, discoveries and reunions. The opportunity to give away the best-selling author or to find wonders like The return of the Geste, by PC Wren. In Altair they signed together, and that is a couple united by destiny, the great traveling writers Patricia Almarcegui and Jordi Esteva, who do more gigs than Simon & Garfunkel. Eva Baltasar, another winner of the day, was eager to sign in Finestres. Back at the Desperta Ferro booth, Indiana Jones signed without a hat: Jordi Serrallonga, author of the nice archeology book In Search of Dr. Jones, had left her fedora at home to the disappointment of her admirers. At the stand of the Egyptian Museum, where Sant Jordi became Horus, José Miguel Parra, more sheltered than when he excavated in Luxor, extended his signature on The Great Pyramid, what a scam! and it was not in hieroglyphics. Unexpected success (very generational audience) of a booth on Passeig de Gràcia where they sold old die-cut Ferrandiz stories.

Sant Jordi is also, at the other extreme, the humble apotheosis of self-published. Many self-publishing booths, of people looking for a place in the history of literature (Kafka also had some beginnings) or, more modestly, to have a book bought from them. “Good morning, sir, I am the author,” the creator of Calmness and restlessness, Karmen RC Imagination reigned in the booths to claim the attention of the passerby. “Smart books, different readers,” read a sign at a stand where a variety of books were offered, from Cotzee to Jordi Puntí. In another, they gave you a free rose if you brought them an old book. In another they offered “Health, LGTBIQ+, anti-racism, veganism”, and even “love”. As Rumi wrote (spotted at random while standing on the shoulder of a young girl who was reading it with teary eyes): “Love is flying towards a secret sky and causing a hundred veils to fall every moment.” That is also, the Sufi poet might have said, reading.