265 publishing houses, 25 bookstores, and 21 institutions: the Catalan Book Festival returns.

The great festival of Catalan literature, one of the most important cultural events in the Catalan capital, once again fills Passeig Lluís Companys with readers, publishers, booksellers, and authors. From Friday, September 19th to Sunday, September 28th, Barcelona will host a new edition of Catalan Book Week, an opportunity for book lovers to buy books and also to meet the authors. The celebration of the Week is presented, once again, as a Catalan book festival, which will feature author presentations and signings, conversations and roundtables, poetry recitals and theater evenings, literary tours and podcasts, among other activities.

The Week grows year after year and does so decisively: 94 booths—8 more than last year—will represent a total of 312 exhibitors, including publishers, bookstores, and institutions. Of these, there will be up to 265 publishing houses from Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, the Valencian Community, Andorra, and Northern Catalonia. Their content will be diverse and they will be aimed at different audiences, demonstrating the rich publishing ecosystem published in Catalan. A total of 25 bookstores and 21 institutions will also join the extensive offerings of Catalan Book Week. However, this year's edition hopes to at least match the figures from 2024, when it received around 100,000 visitors and saw a sales increase of almost 20% compared to 2023.

Reading and conversation spaces, this year's new features

Regarding the venue itself, the two stages for young people and adults, the family stage, the large APPEC tent, and the exhibition space designed and produced by the Catalan Literature Institute (Instituto de las Letras Catalanas) remain, which this year is entitled "The Year That Is Going By. Obviousness and Irony in Catalan Literature." However, with the aim of improving the visitor experience in such a central space as Passeig Lluís Companys, this year's edition will feature several new features and more spaces to complement the exhibition spaces.

There will be a new reading space for Caixa de Guissona, the financial institution of the BonÀrea group, which is sponsoring the Week for the first time. Also new is "The Language Tent," a new space run by the Department of Language Policy and the Linguistic Normalization Consortium dedicated to promoting the Catalan language and disseminating learning resources. And they are launching "The Conversation Space," dedicated to activities in which two or three authors will discuss various topics covered in their books, beyond the traditional presentation. The family area will also change significantly with the inauguration of "The Small Reading Space," where more than 100 stories and books will be available for children, along with some small activities. And the "IBBYcat Workshop," a new space producing interactive activities related to reading, will be presented.

Children and young people at the center of the program

Both stages and the discussion space will host a wide variety of activities for young people and adults. As every year, the Week is as diverse as the different publishing houses: fiction and non-fiction, literary genres of very different kinds—novels, plays, poetry—and for very diverse audiences. During the ten days of the Catalan book festival, there will be discussions covering various topics related to books, roundtables covering topics such as feminism, poetry recitals and theater performances, and several literary podcasts.

And for the little ones, there's Family Week, which this year features many new features and is consolidating its position as a meeting point for children up to 12 years old and reading in Catalan. Small-scale shows, storytelling sessions, illustrated stories, workshops, and proposals featuring authors and illustrators are among the 66 activities scheduled for children.

The Week's venue will be open from 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., except on Friday the 19th (from 4:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.) and Sunday the 28th (from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.). As every year, admission to the venue is free. You can consult the full program at https://lasetmana.cat/.