An hour after the metal shutters of the 366 booths at the Madrid Book Fair were raised, Queen Letizia arrived at 11 a.m. this Friday at Retiro Park. School groups and the earliest visitors had taken the lead, and during the traditional opening walk, the Queen chatted with some of them. Beforehand, there was a round of greetings to the members of the delegation, which on this occasion included the Fair director, Eva Orúe; the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun; the Mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida; the Government delegate Francisco Martín Aguirre; and the president of the Madrid Booksellers Association, Luis Miguel Tigeras. The large delegation also included Marta Rivera de la Cruz, Deputy Councilor for Culture, Tourism and Sports, Andrea Levy, councilor of the Retiro Municipal Board, and Manuel González Moreno, president of the Federation of Spanish Publishers’ Guilds. A security detail surrounded the authorities during the hour and a half that the Queen’s visit to the 85th edition of the Fair lasted, which will remain open until June 14. The first stop was at the Ministry of Culture’s booth, while a small group of early childhood educators dressed in yellow shouted against the mayor and demanded improvements in their salary conditions. More than a tide, it was a loud puddle shouting “we educate, we do not babysit.”
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As usual, the Queen received books as gifts at each of her stops, from titles published by institutions such as the catalog of Madrid: Viva la Bohemia. The Underworld of Literary Life to the Letters of Maruja Mallo (Renacimiento), or the poetry collection by the recently awarded Jaime de Siles, Sound of Other Languages (Huerga y Fierro). She also received a new and carefully edited edition of Poet in New York by Federico García Lorca, with a prologue by Andrés Soria Olmedo, published by Arrebato. Pep Olona, director of this label, located at the Fair in the central space in a large booth that under the name Indómitas hosts several small publishers focused on the book as an object, chatted with the Queen as in other years although this was not planned in the program. She also greeted and talked with the Zaragoza filmmaker Natalia Moreno, author of Madonna Was Not Born in Wisconsin (Galaxia), who gave her the book.
The tour of the booksellers’ and publishers’ booths started at Cervantes y Compañía, and paid special attention to several anniversaries: the 50th anniversary of Huerga y Fierro and Ediciones de la Torre, one of the great veterans of Retiro, led by editor José María Gutiérrez de la Torre. There was also a stop at the booth of the publisher Nórdica, which has turned 20 years old, and whose director, Diego Moreno, wanted to gift her Hunger, by Knut Hamsun, the novel for which, he explained, he decided to start Nórdica, but the Queen had already read it and knew well the controversial story surrounding the author.
The Queen also stopped at the recently arrived bookstore chain Santos Ochoa, an establishment originating from La Rioja, with 111 years of history and a branch in the province of Madrid, in Torrelodones. There she received Practical Riojan Cooking published by the bookstore itself. There was a stop at Vino a por Letras, the Getafe establishment that pairs books and wine, and another at Girasol, a bookstore that opened in 2021 in a residential area in Algete.
Temperatures were rising and the tour was nearing its end when the students from Almudena School in the Retiro district welcomed the Queen at the Children’s Pavilion and recorded a brief interview with her for their podcast. Before the delegation dispersed, the mayor, when asked if special measures are planned to facilitate access to Retiro next weekend when the Pope will celebrate an outdoor mass at Cibeles, insisted again that the metro and bus will be the best way to get there, ignoring that several road closures are planned.
Maitena and humor
The 85th edition of the Fair has humor as its thematic axis and it will be on Friday afternoon when the first of the more than 400 scheduled activities begin. The great Argentine cartoonist Maitena, accompanied by authors Rodrigo Cortés and Edu Galán, will speak at 6:30 p.m. in a panel moderated by Mercedes Cebrián about Our Childhood Laughter in the Caixabank pavilion. An hour later in the Ibero-American pavilion, Chilean novelist Paulina Flores, Argentine writer Virginia Higa, and Spanish humorist and screenwriter Álvaro Carmona participate in the talk titled Life: that suspicious material. Also at 7:30 p.m., the Europe pavilion hosts a talk about Pedro Sorela featuring Álex Grijelmo, Alfonso Armada, Montse Morata, and Laura Casielles.
Among the signings scheduled for this first afternoon of the fair will be Siri Hustvedt, Julia Navarro, Sara Barquinero, and Fernando Aramburu.
