With a traditional ceremony known as Cambio de estafeta, which took place on 8 December and was led by Marisol Schulz, Director General and President of the FIL, and the Councillor for Culture and Creative Industries, Xavier Marcé, the city of Barcelona took over the Spanish flag (guest country for 2024), as guest of honour at the next edition of the Guadalajara International Book Fair, the main Spanish-language publishing event and one of the most important cultural gatherings in Latin America, to be held next November.

Barcelona’s presence as the city of honour at the fair coincides with the tenth anniversary of the declaration of the Catalan capital as a Literary City by Unesco in 2015. It will be a very important moment for literature born in Barcelona, as the approximately 800,000 visitors to the FIL every year will have the opportunity to get to know our city and enjoy a programme prepared by the literary journalist Anna Guitart.

With the slogan Vindran les flors, Barcelona’s programme at the Mexican fair will recall one of the best-known and most international names in Catalan literature, that of Mercè Rodoreda. Flowers were not only one of the author’s great passions, but Guadalajara is known as ‘The city of roses’ and, as you know, Barcelona’s main cultural festival, Sant Jordi, has roses as its main co-protagonists.

The musical group L’arannà has performed during the ceremony of the Change of Stafeta. It is no coincidence, as their debut album, La Salamandra, is dedicated to the Barcelona writer, whose literary universe they turn into music.

In addition, the Barcelona delegation at the FIL has presented their hosts with a very special gift: a lithograph of Joan Brossa’s visual poem Llibres Lliures, which was created in 1994 specifically for the 43rd Fira del Llibre d’Ocasió Antic i Modern de Barcelona (43rd Barcelona Antiquarian and Modern Occasion Book Fair).

If you want to know more about the Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara, please visit the website as well as this link.