Four kilometres of book shelves

Cat­alo­nia's an­nual book fair, the Set­mana del Lli­bre en català, takes place from Sep­tem­ber 2-11 in Barcelona on the avin­guda de la Cat­e­dral. The fair is aim­ing to break all records this year with a wide offer of books and pub­li­ca­tions in Cata­lan. The event will host 63 stands –17.5% more than last year– and 150 ex­hibitors (28% more), among whom will be book­shops, pub­lish­ing houses and in­sti­tu­tions.

“Last year was a year of con­sol­i­da­tion and we had an in­crease of 24% in sales and au­di­ence, and this year we aim to grow even more,” says Joan Sala, di­rec­tor of the event.

Among the new ex­hibitors are big names, such as FNAC, but small book­shops will also be rep­re­sented: “In all, we'll have four kilo­me­tres of shelves full of books, it will be the time in his­tory with the most books in Cata­lan all con­cen­trated at the same time and in the same place”, says Sala.

For the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year, the Set­mana will pre­sent the au­tumn re­leases, with a se­ries of in­ter­na­tional au­thors com­ing to pre­sent their new books, such as Grégoire Polet and Milo de An­ge­lis, as well as local au­thors, such as Ramon Sol­sona, Carme Riera, Jordi Cussà and Se­bastià Be­nas­sar.

After try­ing out var­i­ous venues in pre­vi­ous years, the Set­mana has now been given a com­mit­ment from the city coun­cil to keep the avin­guda de la Cat­e­dral as a per­ma­nent venue in the fu­ture. This year, the event has come back with a new look in­spired by the Santa Cate­rina mar­ket, with more mod­ern and func­tional stands.

The event aims to pro­mote and en­cour­age read­ing, and there are some 230 ac­tiv­i­ties or­gan­ised, many of them ad­dressed to chil­dren and young read­ers: “We know that low aca­d­e­mic re­sults are di­rectly re­lated to the num­ber of books a fam­ily has at home, that's why it is im­por­tant that chil­dren have their own per­sonal li­brary,” says Sala.

The Tra­jectòria award, given to a pro­fes­sional ded­i­cated to the world of cul­ture for the past 20 years, will go to the trans­la­tor Anna Casas­sas, for the ex­cel­lence of her work in a field not recog­nised enough. As a way to cel­e­brate, the artist Jaume Plensa has de­signed a dig­i­tal draw­ing of lit­er­ary in­spi­ra­tion, and one of the three only copies made will be gifted to Casas­sas.

This year's in­crease in the fair's ac­tiv­i­ties and the num­ber of stands is also due to a higher bud­get, which has grown from €360,000 last year to €410,000 this year. This has been pos­si­ble thanks to new spon­sors, such as Coca Cola, Otbra So­cial La Caixa, and TMB, which will be run­ning a spe­cial cam­paign pro­mot­ing read­ing in Cata­lan on pub­lic trans­port.