After a Sant Jordi with bad weather and the pandemic of the previous year, Barcelona is preparing to celebrate the day of the book again, Sant Jordi 2023, with joy and great expectations.
This year 320 book booths are expected, the highest number in the event’s history, and there will be many author signings throughout the day.
In addition, the city will repeat the literary “superblock” that premiered last year and traffic will be cut off in an area between Paseo de Gràcia, Diagonal, Rambla Catalunya and Gran Via so that people can stroll in peace and quiet.
The big novelty this year will be the return of the Rambla to the route to find a book and a rose.
To help you choose which books to give as gifts or selfies, here are some titles for different tastes. There is everything: novelties and classics, fiction, essays and autobiography.
Sant Jordi 2023: recommended books to celebrate the book day in Barcelona
El retrato de casada, by Maggie O’Farrell (Libros del Asteroide/L’Altra Editorial)
A work by the same author of Hamnet and who now turns her attention to Lucrezia de’Medici, the unknown protagonist of one of her favorite poems, “My Last Duchess”, by Robert Browning. The writer discovered that this character had existed and that she had been murdered by her husband when she was only 16 years old. O’Farrell uses his prose to tell this exciting story, even when you know the ending from the beginning.
The Teacher and the Beast, by Imma Monsó (Anagrama)
A novel of initiation that portrays the silences of the postwar period through a reserved teacher who suffers in anticipation. The plot is moving and poignant as it portrays the innocence and vulnerability that have disappeared in a world saturated with screens, where everyone thinks they know everything. La maestra y la Bestia is the first novel by Imma Monsó published in Spanish and Catalan by Anagrama.
Montevideo, by Enrique Vila-Matas (Seix Barral)
Last work of the writer from Barcelona where he embarks on an adventure in Montevideo, Uruguay, in which reality and fiction intermingle. Vila-Matas wrote this book motivated by his experiences after a pandemic and some personal circumstances. He dedicates the novel to his wife, who donated a kidney to him.
“Oración a Proserpina” by Albert Sánchez Piñol
A new adventure story that transports the reader to a distant world inhabited by Romans and horrible monsters called tectons. The author manages to capture the reader in any of his stories, vindicating fiction as an escape door to parallel realities.
In the children’s area
Salamandra publishes four new books to commemorate the 80th anniversary of “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, including a bilingual edition in Spanish and English and a hide-and-seek game for the little ones.
