Editor of editors. And, without a doubt, one of those who best know how the world of books works in this country. In the flesh, through Editorial Plotthe label he has run for 29 years and whose flagship … is the collection Tipos Móviles, where he has published Hubert Nyssen, Severino Cesari and Jean-Jacques Pauvert.
And also in his experience through others, as editor of the magazine ‘Plot&Textures’, “territory of meeting, reflection, analysis and debate of everything that refers to the universe of publishing, reading, cultural content, creation processes and new media.” Or his work as president of the Association of Cultural Magazines of Spain.
Since he was a child, Manuel Ortuño lived among books. The books that were everywhere in his father’s house, who worked in Mexico for UTEHA, the Hispanic American Editorial Typographic Union. A company that the Galician exile Pancho Pérez González had founded, which had 18 branches in different countries in Latin America, Germany and Japan, and which in some way was the embryo of the Santillana publishing house.
His dual status as Spanish and Mexican allowed him to read books there that he then lent to his classmates, such as Enid Blyton’s collections. First readings to which he would later add those of the two authors who have had the most influence on him and who have continued to accompany him throughout his life: Italo Calvino, of whom, in addition to his writing, his role as editor and specialist in the machinery of literary publishing, and Mark Twain, “sarcastic, ironic, irreverent…”, whom he would later joyfully publish in his publishing house.
A catalog was born that sought to reflect “a way of being and being in the world”
Books, a good part of which stayed in Mexico when first he, at 19 years old—fifteen days before Franco’s death, he says—and later his family, came to live in Spain. Four years of Law and two of Political Science formed an academic career that very soon, perhaps due to family tradition, transformed into an entire life dedicated to the publishing world.
After collaborating for many years on different publishing projects, in 1996 the idea arose, among a group of “crazy friends”, to found their own label. The creation was called Trama Editorial, and each of the partners began combining their own work with the different tasks of publishing. A “toy” that, they thought, would materialize the group’s passion for reading and, above all, would facilitate the opportunity to continue together regularly through the company. And that for a long dozen years has forced Manuel Ortuño to full dedication.
Thus, among friends, a catalog was born that aimed, beyond intervening and participating in the “public conversation”, to reflect “a way of being and being in the world.” A catalog articulated from several collections headed, in addition to Tipos Móviles, by the Largo Recorrido series, where the first established authors, such as Twain, George Sand or Castelao, were incorporated titles by authors of our time.
Among the last: Antonio Castronuovo, Santiago Hernández Zarauz or Ray Loriga. Books, says the editor, that interest, excite and entertain. And they bring laughter and smiles. Because, among all these things, and following Roberto Calasso’s motto, if what you are doing does not make you laugh a few times a day, it is not worth it.
From his experience, for Manuel Ortuño, an editor is one who makes it possible for a creator’s work to reach its audience, accompanying the author and, at the same time, acting as a prescriber for the reader. An intermediary task that, in the times of algorithms and artificial intelligence, some have dared to question. For him, however, AI is something like a stone in the pond: it has moved the waters, but in the end everything returns to its place. And today’s publishers’ site is a space where large groups coexist naturally with small and independent labels, such as Trama Editorial. The question, for the latter, is how to achieve visibility. How to reach that audience that is out of the ordinary, that is looking for special readings and who often don’t know how to find them. An audience, by the way, among which an increasingly demanding reader stands out. And where there are more and more young people, he says, interested in literature. A reality that has little to do with the pessimism that emerges from the figures displayed by reading promotion campaigns. New readers for new authors and new literary textures. For books and, from his experience, also for cultural magazines. The world is complex, he says, and it is increasingly necessary for the reader to develop a critical spirit.
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