Runas, Alianza Editorial’s fantastic label, changes its engine room with the retirement of Belén Urrutia and the arrival of Alexandre López – Librujula

Editor Belén Urrutia leaves Runas after 20 years at the helm and having launched authors such as Joe Abercrombie, Kameron Hurley and Ken Liu into orbit.

Text: Antonio Torrubia

Ultima Thule (in the Middle Ages and Roman times it designated any distant place beyond the borders of the known world) was presented as a project at Grupo Anaya by Javier Martín Lalanda in 1989 and the first volumes began to be published, with translations by the same publisher, in 1992. In four years, 20 volumes were published and in 1996 it was closed.

Less than a decade later, the editor Belen Urrutia was commissioned to open a fantasy genre collection that would not only recover essential classic titles of fantasy, horror and science fiction, but would alternate them with quality new releases. In issue 4 of Windumanoth magazine we made him between Daniel Garrido (@ArbolSonriente) and I did an interview in which, among many other things, this was said: «@LeeRunas and fantastic literature are a union that the Spanish genre reader knows well. Belén Urrutia, has managed to have a fantastic label in the difficult Spanish publishing market by publishing Joe Abercrombie, Kameron Hurley either Ken Liuamong others.”

The fantastic seal Runeswithin Editorial Allianceis one of the great supporters of fantasy and science fiction in our country. Readers of the fantasy genre in Spanish have been able to enjoy, thanks to its editions, the recovery of classic authors such as J. G. Ballard either Paul Andersonwhile betting on a new batch of voices like Catriona Ward, Sarah Pinborough either Alma Katsu. But Runas has also opted for national creators, bringing us novels by Concepción Perea, Guillem López, Marc Pastor either Ismael Martínez Biurrun.

Alianza has more than fifty years of experience, the last decades in Anaya, the third largest narrative publishing group in Spanish (behind the two publishing dinosaurs that are Grupo Planeta and Penguin Random House). Since its inception it has treated the fantasy genre with love and respect. In the 1970s, the collections that Rafael Llopis edited together with the translator Francisco Torres Oliver (The Cthulhu Mythos1969) made (and continue to make) several generations discover the work of Lovecraft and cosmic horror and we became fond of genre literature. In the pocket collection and in 13/20 he has edited and republished Stanislaw Lem, Mary Shelley, Arthur Machen, Edith Warton, Guy de Maupassant either Arthur C. Clarke. In the 1990s, Javier Martín Lalanda started the aforementioned Última Thule collection in Anaya with The broken sword by Poul Anderson and in a short time they published 20 titles by authors such as Abraham Merritt, C.L. Moore, Robert E. Howard.

The Runas project began in 2005, trying to give a boost to the literature of the genre, which from the beginning worked very well in the Pocket Book collection, with more current titles. They opened with stories of Mike Resnicka novel by Kotzwinkle and they recovered The broken sword by Poul Anderson of Ultima Thule. Soon, they became enthusiastic about Abercrombie, although they only published 2 or 3 titles a year. In 2014 they decided to relaunch it, publish more and more varied titles with the highest quality and try to better reach the fandom through social networks.

And after these almost 20 years, the person who started the Runas project, Belén Urrutia, is retiring.

I have asked the new editor, who is currently taking over the label, to explain a little about how he will continue and what Runes has been for him. I leave you with Alexandre Lopezbut not before thanking one of the best friends I have found in these 22 years in the world of books (although our beginnings were not the best, but that is another story):

«To say that Runes is one of the main references in fantasy and science fiction seems unnecessary, because I think any reader knows it just by looking at their shelves. What I do consider essential is to join so many other voices that here emphasize the difficult task it is to create something like this almost from nothing, the tireless commitment it is to keep it afloat and how easy it can be to forget that there is someone who has achieved it . Belén has managed to make Runas be on the front line in all aspects. I only know part of the process and the effort and sacrifices he had to make, but even then I am not able to imagine what that journey must have been like. It will be impossible to do justice to the work she has done all this time, but I can only promise her and all the people who have supported this collection that, if I reach a fraction of what Belén has achieved, they will have Runes for many more years. .»