A few days ago Mario Vargas Llosa returned to the La Catedral bar in Lima. He went there to look – said his son Álvaro – for the ghosts of the zambo Ambrosio and Zabalita, the man who once asked himself: “At what point did Peru go screwed?” That was more than half a century ago, a time in which that phrase has resonated in half the world, far from its geographical and literary borders. Today the Nobel is already the last great exponent of the ‘boom’, an editorial discovery that summarizes not only the success of Latin American literature, but also the (cultural) bridge that united the two shores of Spain in the last century. Now that the Guadalajara FIL is being held, the great Hispanic book festival, which in this edition has the motto ‘Way back and forth’, the question is inevitable: how are the literary routes between the two shores working? «There is a cliché that keeps repeating itself, and that is that we are countries separated by the same language. But it’s not true. The degree of cultural exchange and knowledge between the different literatures of the Hispanic world is much greater than it seems,” says Daniel Fernández, director of the Federation of Editors’ Guilds of Spain (FGEE). “The first FIL was held in 1987. Since then this cultural exchange has become much more lively,” says Andrés Ramírez, editorial director of Penguin Random House in Mexico. There are several factors that have contributed to this, such as the push by the publishing industry to cover more space and market, or the increasingly strong presence of authors who manage to connect with different audiences. There is a new generation of writers who have also grown up with other tools that their colleagues who came after the ‘boom’ did not have, which are literary agents: there has been an explosion of agents in recent years. That has been very important. But it is true that there is still a lot of room for improvement. Among these shortcomings is the infrastructure to connect the different countries of the continent. « It is absurd to compare Spain with Latin America; It would be like comparing Colombia and Europe,” emphasizes Juan Casamayor, editor of Páginas de Espuma, a label with twenty-five years of history that has created its own distribution network in this constellation of countries. «We sell in all Latin American countries, except Cuba and Venezuela. I even sell in Nicaragua! And from my experience I can say that what fails are the sales channels. It has to do with transportation, fiscal difficulties, politics… So today it is easier to take a book from Madrid to Quito than from Bogotá to Quito. This is something confirmed by Germán Touza, editor of Ampersand, based in Buenos Aires and Madrid. «Internal trade is very difficult here, there are many difficulties. “It is much easier to export from Spain than from Argentina.” Because? “Customs complications, bureaucratic obstacles…” There, several publishers assure, there is a business opportunity for Spain. One hundred powerful authors According to the latest report on Domestic and Foreign Book Trade in Spain from the FGEE, foreign sales of the Spanish publishing industry rose to 376 million in 2023 euros, which represents 13.2% of total sales. Ibero-America, of course, is the main destination for exports, and Mexico is the country that buys the most Spanish books, worth 63 million euros (56.7% of the total). «We started working twenty-two years ago, and the reality then, and partly now, is that there was a lot of trade from Spain to America but not the other way around. And to solve it we decided to open a subsidiary in Madrid, because before we had the world rights to some books that we could only distribute in Spain in a few publishers, such as La Central or Cálamo,” says Eduardo Rabasa, from Sexto Piso. “There are several publishers that have done this, such as Caja Negra, Almadía, Ediciones Godot, Eterna Cadencia… To be in the world of books you have to be in Spain.” «The bridges between Latin American countries are weak: this is true. Although there is a new generation of Latin American writers who are generating a new dynamic, making things easier,” says Andrés Ramírez. He refers to authors such as Emiliano Monge, Cristina Rivera Garza, Lina Meruane, Mariana Enríquez, Fernanda Trías or Antonio Ortuño, among many others: “There are a hundred very powerful authors.” Many of them are distributed throughout Spain. “Ties have been created between countries, and there are phenomena that succeed regardless of borders, but it seems that everything has to go through Spanish customs,” Casamayor emphasizes. He highlights the case of Mónica Ojeda: her work ‘Las Voladoras’ was printed in Uruguay, Argentina, Colombia and Mexico, and reached the entire continent, where it sold eighteen editions of more than a thousand copies each. However, in this exchange there is an endless discussion, and it is that of the literary balance: in which direction it is easier to sell. Casamayor is clear: «Spanish authors in America, with few exceptions, do not have worthwhile sales mobility, and I have tried. “It is easier to launch Latin American authors in Spain.” The exceptions, he specifies, are the big names: Irene Vallejo (“an unusual and wonderful phenomenon, I had not seen anything like it except with Mariana Enríquez”), Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Luis García Montero, María Dueñas, Rosa Montero… “And Alana S. Portero is working very well here, it is another pleasant surprise. Andrés Ramírez clarifies: «I don’t see it so clearly. Here we meet the great authors of Spain, although others do not make it and they are a long way away. There has been an explosion of literary agents in recent years, and there is room for improvement. And Ezra Alcazar, from the Economic Culture Fund, complicates the equation again: «More Spaniards arrive here than Mexicans there. And no new voices arrive. I think it is the responsibility of the editors. “We are losing voices because they are not famous or do not have great promotions.” The Guadalajara writer Antonio Ortuño explains the mess: «Numerically, the Spanish publishing industry has much greater power, and that also opens the door to more Latin American authors published there; of course the literary stars, but also other types of authors, more niche or younger, who do not have that popular hook. And here, on the other hand, the majority of Spanish writers who reach us are those who have been chosen by the big publishers. There are few Spaniards published in independents here. In this case it harms Spanish writers who, if they are not superstars, if they are not Irene Vallejo or Pérez-Reverte, it is more difficult for them to arrive. In addition, he insists, there is another element to take into account. «There are many Latin Americans living in Spain: that is another point, because at the end of the day, although they are Latin Americans, they are part of the literary, cultural and publishing ecosystem of Spain.» What voices are we missing? Here are some names: the Uruguayan Tamara Silva (Pages de Espuma will publish it in 2025), the Mexican Luis Felipe Apuesta (Sexto Piso published it, but it did not work in Spain), Jorge Ibargüengoitia, also Mexican (“it is published but does not have the recognition that he deserves, is our Mendoza”), the Chilean poet Juan Elmar, now deceased, as well as the Guadeloupe Guadalupe Dueñas or the Colombian Andrés Caicedo, who left no mark on our country. This edition has the motto ‘Round trip’, the question is inevitable: how are the literary routes between the two shores working? All in all, Ortuño thinks that the radar is working: «You are very self-critical at times and think that you do everything wrong, but there are many young authors that I have discovered at this fair or in others and soon they jump to Spain, like Franco Félix, who is one of the best young Mexican authors, or Michel Nieva, also great. There are many people there who are aware of what is happening in Latin America. There is another factor in this cultural exchange, and it is economic. «Here Spanish books continue to arrive at Spanish prices. In this round trip, the problem is the price,” laments Ezra Alcázar. According to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography of Mexico (Inegi), most Mexicans receive an average salary of 7,380 pesos per month, that is, about 350 euros. «They are very expensive prices for Mexico. The problem is that it doesn’t print here. That is why we seek to make co-editions and thus lower prices. In fact, we have a collection called Vientos del Pueblo, and each copy costs 20 pesos [algo menos de un euro]. And then we have the Popular Collection, where we publish small books for less than 100 pesos [menos de cinco euros] and large ones less than 200 [nueve euros]”, account. They also have a co-editions project to do the same. «We already do them with Hoja de Plata and Capitán Swing, among others: we share costs and improve prices. And we want to do it with Edhasa… The objective is to create readers. «We are working on it. At Edhasa we have already printed in Mexico and Argentina. Additionally, in Mexico we participate in the distribution company Ladolibro. The Mexican market has two speeds. Our books are expensive to produce, just because of the format: hardcover, tape, cover, dust jacket, good paper… It would be good to promote the seal at more affordable prices, yes, we are studying it. “You have to adapt to each country,” says Daniel Fernández, who is also editor of Edhasa. Although he does not believe that this is the solution to all problems. The price factor «Price is a factor, but not the only one. I would dare to say that a hypothetical radical drop in prices for Mexico would mean an increase in sales of 5 or 10%. We must improve reading rates in Mexico, and for that the important thing is libraries and reading plans,” he says. According to the latest Inegi report, in 2024 only 70% of the literate population aged 18 and over declared having read books, magazines, newspapers, comics, Internet pages, forums or blogs. 15% less than last year. And of that reading population, only 42% read books. The FIL cannot reverse what the Mexican educational system does not do. The FIL cannot stop people from reading books. Mexico is not a reading country, no matter how much the authorities say so and people perjure it. We have 130 million inhabitants and with that there are enough readers to maintain a publishing industry and independent labels, but we do not have readers at the population level,” Ortuño sighs. The question, of course, was never ‘when things got screwed up’, but when they will be fixed. Or if they ever will.
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