• Spain presents a powerful and diverse literary program for the days of the celebration, from October 20 to 24, in which it will take over from Canada as the next Guest of Honor in the 2022 edition.
· The new website spainfrankfurt2022.com is launched, with a design in accordance with the motto and visual identity “Spain. Overflowing Creativity ”, from which all the meetings of the literary program and the ceremonies will be broadcast.
· Spain's participation in the 2022 Frankfurt Book Fair is based on five pillars: bibliodiversity, innovation, linguistic plurality, gender equality and sustainability.
A powerful landing of more than 70 writers, illustrators, translators, editors, cultural journalists and other professionals in the sector make up a quality, attractive and plural literary program, as an aperitif of this 2021 to the great appointment of books and literature that Spain has with Frankfurt in 2022. It is a unique opportunity to promote the Spanish publishing sector internationally and publicize the “Overflowing Creativity” that today sustains the country's cultural industry.
Coinciding with the launch of the new website Spain Guest of Honor to the FBM 2022, the Ministry of Culture and Sports, through the Directorate General for Books and Reading Promotion, together with Acción Cultural Española (AC / E) and the Federation of the Publishers Guild of Spain, announce the literary program of the Frankfurt Book Fair 2021 and the ceremonies that Spain will star to begin its year as Guest of Honor in the largest commercial event of the book, which this year will run from 20 to 24 October.
Under the slogan "Overflowing Creativity", the program aims to publicize the strength of our literature, thinking of the book professional, but also of the Spanish and international audience who will be able to enjoy the talks.
With a design in accordance with the motto and visual identity of ‘Spain Guest of Honor’, the new website SpainFrankfurt2022.com will offer almost thirty meetings with more than 70 protagonists of the Spanish publishing and literary scene in a hybrid format. Some will take place before the Fair, while others will be held live via streaming from Madrid and Frankfurt. The project's Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts will also provide updates from the 2021 Frankfurt Book Fair.
In addition to the extensive literary programming, the institutional agenda for next October will have two key dates. On the one hand, on Thursday 21 the press conference of Spain will be held as Guest of Honor, at the Festhalle, with the presence of the Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta; the general director of the Book and Promotion of Reading, María José Gálvez; the curator of the project Elvira Marco; the president of the Frankfurt Book Fair, Jürgen Boos, and the authors Rosa Montero, Elvira Lindo, Karmele Jaio, Najat El Hachmi and Mario Obrero.
The second great appointment will be on October 24, when Spain takes the witness of Canada as Guest of Honor of the Frankfurt Fair 2022. Jürgen Boos, will sponsor the delivery of the "Guest scroll" (parchment of the Guest of Honor) by the representative of the Canadian Organizing Committee, Caroline Fortin, to the general director of the Book and Promotion of Reading, María José Gálvez. After the event, the writer Manuel Vilas will star in a meeting with a Canadian author. For its part, the Spanish Brass quintet, winner of the 2020 National Music Prize, will close the event by interpreting pieces by Isaac Albéniz and Joan Manuel Serrat, among others.
Under the slogan "Overflowing Creativity", the program of Spain for the Frankfurt Book Fair 2021 and as Guest of Honor 2022 will be based on the international success of Spanish literature, strengthening its expansion in Germany, while discovering new voices to your publishing market.
Since 2019, Acción Cultural Española and the Ministry of Culture and Sports have awarded more than 800 grants for the translation of Spanish works in various languages. During the period from 2019 to 2021, it is estimated that there will be more than 300 titles translated only into German.
The axes of a State project
In the 31 years that have passed since Spain was Guest of Honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the book sector has undergone a great transformation to become the main cultural activity in our country.
The participation of Spain as Guest of Honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2022 wants to be a reflection of that "Overflowing Creativity" so characteristic of our publishing sector, but it is also based on five pillars that symbolize the strength of the industry.
First, the importance of the linguistic plurality of our country, which is reflected in the literary wealth of the different official languages: more than 15% of the 74,000 books published in Spain in 2020 were in Catalan, Galician or Basque. In addition, Spanish acts as a bridge between Europe and Latin America, uniting more than 500 million people throughout the planet and occupying the second position in number of speakers.
The next focus would be on the commitment to innovation to achieve the sustainability of the book, one of the great challenges facing the publishing sector and which is evident in different aspects such as papers, inks, distribution channels, as well as new formats and supports to make reading more accessible. As demonstrated during the pandemic, the Spanish publishing sector has been able to adapt to face the new reality quickly and has served and serves as a model for other sectors.
Another of the foundations of the project is diversity, the result of the reality of Spain as a host country for authors from different parts of the world. Its publishing market is also open to other cultures since translations from Spanish into other languages represent 21% of the national production.
The next axis on which the Spanish proposal is based is the bibliodiversity that is reflected in a rich and diverse network of publishers of different sizes in which large publishers coexist with a growing number of small specialized publishers.
And finally, gender equality, since women lead the reading indexes and their presence is the majority in the publishing and bookseller world.
Programme of Spain for Frankfurt Bookfair 2021
More info:
www.spainfrankfurt2022.com
