Madrid, ready to celebrate 'La Noche de los Libros'

The Community of Madrid is ready to celebrate, this Friday 22nd, the celebration of reading that is 'La Noche de los Libros'. In the words of Giselle Etcheverry Walker, curator of literary activities: "This year La Noche de los Libros will delve into that great shared story: the Madrid that is written and read in the street, in the night of a city that reveals itself without shame, in its urban landscapes, in the bustle and fashions, in the faces and voices that, in the busiest streets, come to meet us with the promise of a new story to tell. Madrid is read: the city in books and books in the city".

Mario Vargas Llosa, Annie Ernaux, Andrés Trapiello, Elvira Sastre, Manuel Vilas, Violeta Monreal, Joaquín Reyes, Kenny Ruiz, Nando López, Isaac Rosa, Lara Moreno and Ana Iris Simón are some of the protagonists of 'La Noche de los Libros', which will take place throughout the day in bookshops, libraries, museums, institutions and cultural centres in Madrid and 65 other municipalities in the region.

To attend certain activities, tickets must be booked in advance. All information is available at www.madrid.org/lanochedeloslibros

On 22 April, the Real Casa de Correos, headquarters of the Presidency of the Community of Madrid, will host, after a welcoming speech by the Regional Minister of Culture, Tourism and Sport, Marta Rivera de la Cruz, a conversation between the writers Mario Vargas Llosa and Andrés Trapiello, moderated by Maite Rico, on La mirada quieta, a personal tribute to Galdós by the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Next, the journalist and writer Berna González Harbour will interview the "Master of the first person", Annie Ernaux, who is visiting Madrid for the first time.

Finally, the literature and friendship of Almudena Grandes and José Manuel Caballero Bonald, who both died last year, will be celebrated with an event hosted by the journalist Pepa Fernández, with the participation of the director of the Caballero Bonald Foundation, Josefa Parra; the poet and director of the José Hierro Foundation, Julieta Valero; the director of the Cervantes Institute in Tangiers, Javier Rioyo; and the poet, writer and journalist, Antonio Lucas. It will end with a musical piece.

Not forgetting children and young people, for whom, at the Casa de Postas, Violeta Monreal has prepared '¡Ay! Me equivoqué, pero no me importa'; manga lovers, who will be able to chat with one of the few Spanish authors of the genre who publish in Japan, Kenny Ruiz and the journalist, director of "Territorio 9" on Radio 3, Javier Alonso (Manga | De Japón a Madrid y viceversa); and poetry lovers, who will enjoy 'Poesía o Barbarie | Slam Poetry', with Paloma Chen, Amalia Buitrago and Ecléctica.

Children will exercise literary and urban voyeurism and discover the stories that Madrid has to tell us through sound experimentation, observation and invention thanks to Laboratorio Sónico de Relatos Urbanos. A project by Chico Trópico in the Plaza del Conde de Barajas. Where, then, the researcher and artist Gloria G. Durán, author of 'Sicalípticas. El gran libro del cuplé y la sicalipsis', and the journalist Miguel Agnes will be accompanied by the cupletista Laura Inclán. To finish with (made in Madrid). 'Poesía en concierto', with Helena Mariño, Enri La Fôret, M. Benito Piriz, together with the thereminist Javier Díez Ena.

The tradition of the literary routes that arouse so much interest continues: 'El Madrid de las escritoras: literatura, periodismo y política' (from the Plaza de Pontejos to the Congreso de los Diputados) by the Colectivo Flaneadoras and 'El Madrid Noir' by Servando Rocha, which starts in the Plaza de la Paja.

Among other activities, there will be a peculiar tournament 'A la caza de libros' in the Cuesta de Moyano in collaboration with the Asociación Soy la Cuesta. It will be an afternoon of hunting guided by two amateur writers in search of bibliographic treasures, Joaquín Reyes, a specialist in humour, and Desirée de Fez, an expert in the horror genre.

It is impossible to list in this article all the activities that bookshops, libraries, museums, theatres and institutions in the Community will be adding to the 'La noche de los Libros' festival. Suffice it to say that anyone who passes through CaixaForum will be able to write and at the same time read the verses that others write in the digital project 'Universal Poem' for which 'La Noche de los Libros' is calling for participation in its networks with the hashtag #lanochedeloslibrosuniversal until 23 April. A universal poem for the city that will literally go from Madrid to the sky.

At Casa de América, Martín Caparrós and Michelle Roche Rodríguez will talk with Raquel Garzón about the home away from home that Madrid is for them; and at the Espacio Fundación Telefónica, Mery Cuesta, author of Humor absurdo, Alba Carballal (Tres maneras de inducir un coma) and Javier Cansado, will answer, possibly with laughter, the mother of all questions: Is there a "Madrid" humour?

Ana Iris Simón and Berta Vias Mahou will talk about 'Memoria oral de la familia' at the Biblioteca Nacional de España; while at the Biblioteca Regional Joaquín Leguina, Eduardo Barba and Mari Paz Martín, with the help of Clara Vignolo, will describe 'Flores de asfalto. A city landscape forged between the cracks'.

Youth literature and social networks will be the topic addressed by Raquel Brune, Vanessa R. Migliore and Nando López (moderated by Nikolay Yordanov), at the Ateneo de Madrid. Isaac Rosa, Lara Moreno and Sergio C. Fanjul will then talk about 'Utopias and dystopias of the city'.

At the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Marcos Giralt Torrente, son of Juan Giralt, and Rodrigo Muñoz Avia, son of Lucio Muñoz and Amalia Avia, will talk about literature and the plastic arts, parents, children and legacies, with the journalist Beatriz Nogal. And, at Teatros del Canal, a staging in which the spectator will experience total darkness while listening to a selection of texts read by Víctor Clavijo and Eva Martí: 'Ensayo sobre la ceguera'. A blind reading in homage to José Saramago.

The protagonist at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando will be 'El txistu en el siglo XXI'.

And for yet another year, this time from Thursday 21 to Saturday 23, the Círculo de Bellas Artes will host the Continuous Reading of Don Quixote, now in its 26th year.

Begoña Oro at the Centro de Arte y Turismo in Soto del Real, Manuel Vilas at the Luis de Góngora Library in Villaviciosa de Odón and Julia Navarro at the Arroyomolinos Library are some examples of the meetings between authors and readers that will be held in 66 municipalities in the Community of Madrid.