As any visitor to Barcelona will quickly discover, Catalunya has its own language, Catalan with a long and proud history. Indeed, the oldest known surviving book in the Iberian peninsula is in Catalan, a medieval recipe book.
Catalunya is also the centre of Spain’s publishing industry and home to most of its major publishing houses. The Catalan love of literature is symbolised nowhere better than on Sant Jordi, the day of Catalunya’s patron saint (Saint Jordi will be familiar to English people as Saint George), when Catalans gift books and roses to one another.
Catalan Book Week has been running for the past 33 years and brings together over 127 exhibitors and 250 activities revolving around literature in Catalan. Publishers from Catalunya, Valencia and the Balearic Islands will be displaying the newest, top-selling Catalan books, as well as magazines and print media archive stocks of rare works.
Activities planned throughout the week are numerous and include poetry readings, storytelling for children and literature discussions. This year’s event carries special weight, as Barcelona looks to strengthen its bid to become a member of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network as a City of Literature.
Catalan Book Week takes place in the old town, very close to the Gothic Cathedral on the Avinguda de la Catedral from September 2nd to the 11th.
More information can be found here: http://www.lasetmana.cat/
