IT is the anniversary of the death of Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes, best-known for the classic Don Quixote, but today is also an important day for romantics in Catalonia.
The Day of Books and Roses is a colourful occasion which sees both items exchanged as gifts between friends and lovers, and Catalonia is taking small steps today as it emerges from lockdown, after the day was conducted online last year.
People will be allowed on to the thoroughfares of Barcelona, but other cities are also taking part to prevent too large concentrations of people as Covid-19 remains a worry.
Iolanda Batalle, director of the Institut Ramon Llull, told The National: “Writers will be signing books with more distance between us and masks and much more protection.
“Everything will be spread around the cities, so [it is] not just in one place and so there’s not a large amount of people concentrated in one place. We’ll be back in the streets with roses and books which is beautiful, just amazing.”
English now accounts for 12% of translations from Catalan – the second most popular language after Spanish – with classic Catalan authors topping the charts, and Batalle said it was hoped to grow next year when Catalonia will be highlighted at the London Book Fair.
She said: “We’ll be at the London Book Fair in 2022 and we hope to increase the percentage of English translations up to maybe 20% by next year … which is also our 20th anniversary.”
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