President Illa toasts to a Catalan 'boom' in Latin America

Guadalajara (Mexico)Barcelona's year as guest city culminated with the official opening of the Catalan pavilion at the Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL). The final day of speeches, this time mostly in Catalan, included a nod to the emblematic director of the FIL, Marisol Schulz Manaut, whom the Barcelona City Council had announced that morning would be awarded the city's Medal for Cultural Merit. Alongside Schulz were the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa; the Mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni; the Catalan Ministers of Culture and Foreign Affairs, Sònia Hernández and Jaume Duch; and the President of the Catalan Publishers' Guild, Patrici Tixis.

After citing Barcelona's key role in the boom Latin American literary scene of the 70s and 80s, President Isla has expressed his desire that the FIL be the starting gun for a "boom Barcelona and Catalan culture in Latin America, without complexes, on a round trip." Illa equated "the hospitality and dynamism" he found in Mexico with a Catalonia "that is also a place of welcome and is also experiencing a dynamic moment." For Illa, who recalled that Josep Tarradellas was elected president of the Generalitat in Mexico, the "historic fraternity of Mexico with the exiles who fled the Franco dictatorship" must now give way to a "renewed fraternity." In this sense, he praised the role of the FIL (Barcelona International Book Fair) which, "faced with the wave of extremism that wants to seize control of democracy, offers culture and dialogue against hatred and against those who want to build walls." And, referring to the Sant Jordi festival, he proclaimed that "there is nothing more revolutionary than giving books and roses" against intolerance.

Before the president, the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, to whom the city of Guadalajara had symbolically handed over its keys that morning, described the FIL (Guadalajara International Book Fair) as a great opportunity for small Catalan publishers, which have flocked to the event (120 compared to 40 in previous years), to internationalize their catalogs with more translations. He emphasized that Barcelona has arrived in Guadalajara with 10,000 books and "as the capital of Catalonia, with the utmost ambition and with 74% of authors writing in Catalan." Speaking on behalf of the publishers, Patrici Tixis predicted great success for the most Catalan FIL yet, a success that will further enhance the future of a Catalan publishing industry, in both Catalan and Spanish, pluralistic and strong, with Barcelona as its epicenter and the product of 500 years of history. "We've come with everything to illuminate a multilingual fair." The Spanish ambassador to Mexico, Juan Duarte, also attended the event.