A Night with a Coat

For several years now, the Catalan Letters Institution has had an exhibition space at Catalan Book Week and commissions a handful of writers and illustrators to create cartoons on a specific theme. Last year they dedicated it to a meta-literary exhibition, a self-parody of the obvious things about the Catalan literary world and writers, to celebrate the centenary of the publication of Next year by Francesc Trabal, with a prologue by Josep Carner. I wrote a piece about the reality of Catalan writers: we are the first link in the book chain, but the only ones who can hardly make a living from our work. The illustrator Marc Torices turned it into a fantastic comic strip.

I thought about it again on Saturday, while I was looking the gala of the Night of Catalan Letters From the comfort of my sofa at home. I was supposed to go, but at the last minute, between the cold, the rain, and the prospect of having to climb Montjuïc from then on without my motorbike, I stayed home reading. I didn't regret it.

I won't dwell on the criticisms already leveled at the new format (the oversaturation of Sant Jordi or the potential invisibility of independent publishers), but I will address some minor details—domestic, if you will, but quite telling.

First, there's the issue of staging. If you ask attendees to relocate for the occasion, receiving them in plastic chairs might not be the most protocol-driven approach. Seeing President Pujol, at 95, and the rest of the political establishment sitting as if it were a campsite is an image that not even an AI could conceive of.

My sources also tell me they were colder in the Oval Room than at the Port del Comte ski resort. It's true that it will be a difficult space to air-condition, but if, in addition, you leave the guests hungry because there's no catering or drinks to sustain them through the two-and-a-half-hour event, perhaps the budget fell short.

The Night of Saint Lucy was created in 1951 and was something else entirely: a literary community, a space for encounter and cultural resistance. Turning it into a grand institutional and televised gala shouldn't necessarily be a problem, since times change, but it does raise a question: what exactly were we celebrating?

The feeling is that writers and literature, paradoxically, played a secondary role. Previously, the finalists for the Premi Òmnium for best novel of the year had a presence: they were announced well in advance, appeared in the media, were interviewed, and had a place at the gala. They didn't win the prize, but they gained readers. This year, however, everything has been concentrated on the moment of the announcement, like a race in which the important thing is no longer participation, as adults used to tell us when we were children, but who wins. My sources told me that they left there with no desire to write again.

At a time when social media is so distrusted, many cultural events seem to be planned solely for marketing purposes. But literature is not like that. It needs time, silence, and above all, the reminder that without the stories and without the writer, everything else is just smoke and mirrors.