Sandra Bruna: "What seems like it can only happen in villages, before also happened in Barcelona"

Sandra Bruna (Barcelona, 1973) is a literary agent. Twenty-five years ago she created the Sandra Bruna Literary Agency and represents more than a hundred authors.

She grew up on Nàpols street, in the Dreta de l'Eixample, which she claims has changed a lot over the years. “It was a neighborhood that was a real neighborhood. I remember Miquel, the man from the kiosk, the plumber who would come to the house to fix things for you... That which now seems like it can only happen in small towns, before it also happened in the neighborhoods of Barcelona,” she explains. Bruna went to the Sagrat Cor school, in Tetuan square. “I was a very studious girl, but the sciences were very hard for me. I had to put a lot of effort into math, chemistry, physics, and that was a tough process. On the other hand, everything that was literature went very well for me. Many times they would reward me for the effort rather than for the results, especially in the science line, because they saw that I really worked very hard at it,” she recalls.

In the afternoons she did ballet. She explains that from a very young age until she was 18, she did classical dance and also folk dance, activities that gave her discipline. "I wasn't very athletic otherwise, but I liked dance,” she asserts. “It helped me with everything, also with how I approached my studies."

She explains that books have always been in the family. “My aunt was an editorial director at Penguin Random House and she always brought us books. My father is a super-reader and has tried to keep reading present. He succeeded with my sister and me, but not with the rest of the house, because my mother is not a reader and neither is my brother,” she says. "He liked to write, and so did I. I remember in Sant Pol, where I still spend my summers, we would sit on the terrace after lunch and do writing challenges together,” she explains.

As a child, when they asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, she wasn't sure: "I opted for philology because what I like most are letters, but without knowing if I would end up being a teacher or if the publishing world would be part of my life.” Until a coincidence marked her future. “My mother worked as an accountant at the Mercedes Casanovas literary agency, and she said to me: "They need someone to pack parcels: why don't you start in July?" I started as a messenger at 18 and went on to progress until I ran the international department. I was there for ten years learning the trade”.

The trade of her life

Balancing work and studies made her anxious, and her aunt assured her that she would complete her degree while working at the agency. "That's how it was. And that is why I still have some philology subjects pending. Being an agent is a trade, it is not learned at university, it is learned by working," asserts Bruna.

At 28, she set up her own agency. “With the 10 authors I had, I decided to take the step, without touching anything of Mercedes', because she had given me the opportunity”. Over time, her family joined her. “My mother and Roger, my younger brother, joined immediately, in the financial part. Then my father, who was a salesperson: when he took early retirement, since he was a great reader, we gave him the job of reading new voices. And he told me: "I have realized that this was the vocation of my life". One can discover their calling at any age. And when the agency grew a lot, Berta, the middle sister, who was in the publishing sector, joined as my right-hand woman”.

“The company is mine, but I welcomed my whole family into it because there are no better partners than those who are your own”, she says. Although there are also small drawbacks. “Family conversations turn into work conversations, Christmas days that in the end the children tap their glasses and say: "Listen, stop talking about books!"”