The International Book Fair (FIL) opened its doors just a day and a half ago, but the sheer number of events and emotions experienced in the Barcelona pavilion is overwhelming. On Saturday afternoon, Roger Mas delighted passersby with a performance of three songs, including a magnificent adaptation of a poem by Jacint Verdaguer: "Exile feels long to me / I'm being taken to the other shore / my eyes are sleepy / and walking tires me." WalkingPart of the Catalan delegation of authors, editors, agents, and journalists still bore the marks of the long transoceanic journey on their faces.

Tourism of Catalonia has created a new literary route which travels to different points in Barcelona following the novel The City of Wondersby Eduardo Mendoza. In the book, Mendoza recounts the changes experienced in Barcelona at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries due to the Universal Expositions of 1888 and 1929, which transformed the city. This literary route follows the main settings of the novel.

Quim Carandell, vocalist and leader of The Ludwig BandHe's an avid and experienced reader. With his bandmates from the Empordà region, he spends half the week traveling all over Catalonia to festivals and local festivals. But, amidst all the hustle and bustle of the road, he also has plenty of idle hours of traveling and waiting, which are made more enjoyable with a good book in his hands. For this summer, Carandell recommends one he hasn't read yet: The truth about the Savolta case, by Eduardo Mendoza, one thriller well woven about murders and gunmen in Barcelona in the first half of the 20th century.

Surprises can come from the most unlikely places: Eduardo Mendoza (Barcelona, ​​1943) received the news that he had been awarded the 2025 Princess of Asturias Award for Literature at the doctor's office, and a few hours later he received the media at the Jaume Fuster Library, suffering from a growing hoarseness. "I'm going to answer briefly and with ups and downs," warned Mendoza, although he was generous with his responses and patiently faced the "guerilla firing squad" of photographers. Among the 24 candidates from 16 nationalities vying for the award, the jury highlighted Mendoza's literary contribution, with "a set of novels that combine his desire for innovation with the ability to reach a very wide audience, and that enjoy widespread international recognition." "The award has, above all, a great effect of satisfaction, to think that just fifty years after publishing the first novel [The truth about the Savolta case] I haven't been sent to the room of bad toilets yet, and that's very nice," Mendoza said. "I've dedicated my whole life to doing what I like most, which is writing and being lazy, and in the end they've rewarded me in this way," he stressed. is a "provider of happiness." Regarding the role of humor in his work, he explained that after publishing his first serious novel, albeit with touches of humor, he opened "a branch exclusively dedicated to humor." The important thing about humor is not to lower the bar. You have to be respectful of the reader," he said.