Literature

Crime novels are one of the most highly regarded genres by readers in Spain, who devour page after page of plots featuring cunning detectives and no less cunning criminals.

A new generation of Spanish women writers is breathing new life into the literary scene with novels that call on both intimacy and community, move the reader through honesty and stimulate reflections thanks to their strong social commitment.

Writer Virginia Feito has made one of her literary dreams come true: to bring a psychopath to life. This is the case of Winifred Notty, the disturbing protagonist of her second novel: ‘Victorian Psycho.’

With 'A Mouthful of Ash', a novel which will jump onscreen under the direction of her countryman Diego Luna, Mexican author Brenda Navarro has won readers over. She’s planning to meet them at the Madrid Book Fair.

It’s a good time for lyrical poetry. The poetesses born in Spain during the last decades of the 20th century have breathed new life into the scene, attracting new readers and receiving prestigious awards.

Latin-American literature is one of the main characters of the Madrid Book Fair with writers like the Equatorian Mónica Ojeda. We chat to her about her latest novel: ‘Chamanes eléctricos en la fiesta del sol’.

The 83^rd edition of the Madrid Book Fair is travelling to new latitudes thanks to Iberia and its Talento a bordo initiative. Specifically, to Latin America. Writers, publishers, and readers will come together at the Parque del Retiro.

Latin American literature is experiencing a new literary boom and, this time, women writers are the stars of the show. With boundless imagination and a unique sensibility, they keep winning over new readers. Do you want to get to know them?

How would you react if, at the age of 35, you saw yourself for the first time alongside your parents in a photo? Writer Laura Ferrero decided to delve into her family history and the result is one of the most acclaimed novels of 2023: ‘The Astronauts’.

The young author of ‘Dogs of Summer’, a novel that took the Spanish book market by storm in 2020, will receive the Festival Eñe Talento a bordo Award, which seeks to recognise emerging literary talent.

This journalist and writer —or storyteller as she defines herself— Carme Chaparro remembers walking around on Sant Jordi [Saint George’s Day] with a backpack full of books for her idols to sign. Today, she’s the one doing the signing.

Miguel Ángel Hernández’s literary career started just over a decade ago with a call from the mythical editor Jorge Herralde. Today, he strolls around the Madrid Book Fair with his fourth novel under his arm: ‘Anoxia’.

Over time, Juan Gómez-Jurado has woven his own universe where his thrillers leave readers breathless. He’s back with ‘Todo Arde’, a novel featuring three fearless women.

Words are the raw material Leticia Sala works with and she has the virtue of cutting them down and conveying more with less. Her first short-story collection, ‘Los cisnes de Macy’s’, is proof of this.

‘La ciudad’ is Lara Moreno’s new novel. And Oliva, Damaris, and Horía are the three women who inhabit its pages, three names bound to three unforgettable stories.

From journalism, where he became a role model for music fans, Rafa Cervera made the leap to literature. Now, he’s published his third novel: ‘Canción para hombres grandes’. An interview with a soundtrack.

This journalist and writer Rosa Montero has just received the 2022 Festival Eñe Award in recognition of her entire career. Her latest book, 'El peligro de estar cuerda', is another testament to her unquenchable talent.

The Festival Eñe Talento a bordo Award has been granted to Catalan writer Pol Guasch. With two poetry collections and one novel under his belt, the jury has highlighted the maturity of his gaze and his experimental audacity.

Festival Eñe, which celebrates its 14^th edition in Madrid and Málaga, is back with a brand-new category: the Festival Eñe Talento a bordo Award. This award will be granted to an emerging talent in Spanish literature.

Seeing the world through the eyes of others, even a murderer, allows us to check ourselves. This is the journey writer Mónica Rouanet takes the reader on in her latest work: ‘Nada importante’.

Carlos Zanón is a novelist, journalist, columnist, poet, and commissioner of the Barcelona Negra literary festival. Writing is his life, which changes to the rhythm of those songs that are like novels.

Albert Espinosa’s life hasn’t been easy, but he regards it with optimism —realism, in his own words— and refuses to give up. His philosophy, captured in his books and films, has turned him into a role model for thousands of people.

‘Liternature’, described by Gabi Martínez as that literature that seeks to re-establish that missing dialogue between humans and all other living things, can change the course of our lives forever: discovering an unknown self in faraway destinations, or getting to know ourselves better by following animal tracks. Writer Gabi Martínez tells us about this.

The writer returns to the Madrid Book Fair with ‘Lo demás es aire’, a novel set in the small Cantabrian village of his childhood. The lives of its inhabitants - and that of the author himself - intermingle in a work that combines reality and fiction, and in which time meanders through four centuries of history.

After a 27-year career, the lead singer of La Habitación Roja, one of the most veteran independent Spanish rock bands, decided to take stock and write his autobiography: 'Canción de amor definitiva' [Ultimate love song].

If there’s one essential in María Hesse’s life, it’s her paintbrushes. Through them she adds colour, sensibility, and passion to the pages of all her books.

Writer Juan Tallón makes a U-turn after the success of 'Rewind' and delivers 'Obra maestra' [Masterpiece], an unbelievable tale about the disappearance of a sculpture by artist Richard Serra.

Isaac Sánchez became famous as Loulogio. Today, the famous YouTuber is dedicated to what he really loves, drawing, and is the creator of the poster for the Feria del Libro Madrid 2022.

Paco Roca’s artistic talent stems from both the sharpness of his drawings and a narrative inquisitiveness that lead him to explore our most recent history and defend the nobility of many anonymous lives.

2021 EÑE Literary Festival. Álvaro Tato, Luna Miguel, y AJO talk about the influence of poetry among new generations and its role in contemporary society.

With her first attempt at novel writing, writer Ana Merino has become the new recipient of the 2020 Nadal Award for 'El mapa de los afectos', a portrait of America’s Midwest that captures today’s main social issues and in which references to Spain abound.

The writer brings back the crime of child killer Aurora Rodríguez Carballaira in ‘La madre de Frankenstein’, the new instalment of her series dedicated to the post-war era where the reader is submerged into the suffocating and chauvinistic Spain of the 1950s.

The author of 'La isla de los conejos' (Rabbit Island) took up writing to create worlds like the ones she encountered in her readings. Today, the unique universe of her short stories has become a complex scenery in which nothing is what is seems, in which the abnormal coexists with the quotidian. Come in and read. 

Immersed in an endless promotional tour, amidst talks and interviews, we stole some valuable time from writer Irene Vallejo, author of El infinito en un junco [The infinite in a Reed], to chat about the pleasure of knowledge, reading and the art of lending books, the best way, according to her, to get rid of them.

In less than a decade, Zahara has become one of the leading figures of the Spanish indie scene. Her songs reach a wide audience that also supports her restlessness and versatility as an artist. Hers is a self-managed career with an artistic stance committed to equality.

A book bound with a stippled cover. A photo diary by a band on tour in Mexico. A poetry book devised as a Duchampian readymade. A selection of books turned into a pictorial artwork by a plastic artist. The Caniche publishing house sees publishing as a space of freedom and adventure, in which each project follows its own rules.

The author of the award-winning novels 'Los Baldrich' (FNAC Talent 2009), 'Los buenos amigos' (Premio Ojo Crítico 2012) and 'El año en que me enamoré de todas' (The Year I Fell in Love with Them All), a book that earned him the prestigious Premio Primavera de Novela 2013, returns to bookshops with a story about memory and forgiveness.

Agustín Fernández Mallo has been translated into more than ten languages, which is clear evidence of the relevance of his work. Last year he published two new major books: the novel 'War Trilogy', which won the Premio Biblioteca Breve, and the essay 'Teoría general de la basura' (General Theory of Rubbish: Culture, Appropriation, Complexity), a fiction book and a non-fiction book respectively in which Mallo, a flag bearer of the Nocilla Generation, expresses his personal vision of history.

We chat to poet and writer Elvira Sastre about the current literary scene and how she has made writing her way of life. We also cover her latest project, the performance ‘Desordenados’ [Disorganised], which brings protest songs and poetry back on stage.

Photography, film, painting, literature or theatre. A tireless worker, Carlos Saura doesn’t distinguish between artistic disciplines. These days, his name is clearly displayed in an exhibition dedicated to him by the Círculo de Bellas Artes, where this genius reveals his facet as a master of images.

Paz Olivares and Weldon Penderton are Niños Gratis; a new publishing house in Madrid that is on everyone’s lips after only one year. What’s their trick? To publish books that catch your eye and touch your soul.

Writer, singer, composer, singer-songwriter. His great ability to deal with complex issues full of sentimental motivations simply and personally has brought him success, fame and recognition. In December, he’ll close the tour for his latest record, ‘Mis Paisajes Interiores’, in Madrid, during which he has offered more than two-hundred concerts in the last three years between Spain and Latin America.

Whenever David Trueba finishes writing a novel, shooting a movie or making a documentary, he is left with feelings of ambivalence. On the one hand, there is the satisfaction of a job finished and; on the other, the embarrassment of having to show his work. In order to neutralise those fears, when he is releasing or publishing something, he is usually already involved in a new project. We stole a few moments with him while he is immersed in the postproduction of his next film, 'A este lado del mundo'.

Few authors get their books on everyone's lips as soon as they hit bookshops. With a staggering ability to navigate at the juncture of fiction, essay and autobiography, writer and journalist Sergio del Molino will be at the helm of the Eñe Festival, which kicks off this week, with a focus on hybrid genres and disciplines revolving around the written word.

From writing a piece about how the Bélmez's faces ruined her computer, to interviewing La Veneno, giving a TED talk and singing with her band Los Celos. Sabina Urraca has few things left to do in life.

Literature, illustration, painting—the boundaries between disciplines have never been an obstacle for the versatile Paula Bonet to express her inner world. The coming days she will be at the Eñe Festival, which occupies a special place in her heart, with her show 'Abrir la boca y decir lo nuestro' [Open our mouths and say our thing], in which painting and live poetry go hand in hand.

Journalists, poets, essayists, monologuists and artists will participate in the 11th edition of Festival Eñe, held in Madrid and Malaga and which, for the first time, has a guest country, Mexico.

Inventive, bright, subtle or Kafkaesque are some of the most common qualifiers used to describe the narrative pulse and universe of Juan José Millás, a key figure in both Spanish journalism and contemporary fiction. With a new book under his arm, he is also one of the leading voices in this year’s Festival Eñe.

Are you a lover of Spanish literature? Can you wander around between lines and paragraphs for hours on end? Are you up to date with everything that surrounds the Spanish literary scene? We at Talento a bordo would like to see you prove it by taking our test.

Borges and Bolaño are his great influences, but Aitor Sarabia’s field of action goes beyond literature. A creator above anything else, he’s a total artist that conjures up magic in his work, lending it a healing power. His latest book is a good example of this.

In recent years, the Spanish literary ecosystem has been profoundly altered by a poetic explosion that has caused a flood of new creators coming from the insides of the internet. In addition to modifying the editorial landscape, the digital native poets have also collapsed the bestseller lists with their creative output.

Writing, diving—two ways of looking inside oneself, of fighting against the speed of the world. Marina Perezagua has been living in New York for over fifteen years, and her cosmopolitan nature permeates in her stories, set in faraway but recognisable and well-researched places. We speak to her about her last book, ‘Seis formas de morir en Texas’.

Carlos Zanón is among the greatest Spanish crime novelists, but his ambition and talent are not restricted to this genre. He is also a poet, novelist, columnist, literary critic, a lyricist for Loquillo and the curator of the Barcelona Negra literary festival, a position he has held for three years.

In his in-depth essay 'Más allá del trap (Beyond Trap)' young thinker Ernesto Castro dissects the music popularized by artists such as C. Tangana, Yung Beef, Bad Gyal, Pimp Flaco, Kinder Malo o Cecilio G, dissolving the lines between high- and low-brow culture.

Ray Loriga (Madrid, 1967) has been showing his enormous talent as a writer, screenwriter and film director for more than twenty-five years. He has directed actors such as Viggo Mortensen in 'My Brother’s Gun' and Paz Vega in 'Theresa: The Body of Christ' and written stories that have been adapted to film by Pedro Almodóvar, Carlos Saura, and Daniel Calparsoro.