Orriols, Junqueras and other phenomena

A flammable week that saw the Planeta Prize—Juan del Val, alas—the Frankfurt Book Fair, and the Congress of the Spanish Language in Arequipa, from which the sulfurous fumes of the dispute between the directors of the Royal Academy and the Cervantes Institute rise. Despite the combustion and the absences, the presentations' momentum has not been affected, among which two epiphenomena have been detected: the concurrence of political books and talks between writers without any new publications. Let's take it one step at a time.

"A skull from Ávila will never be like a skull from the Plana de Vic." This outrageous phrase was uttered a century ago by Daniel Cardona, one of the founders of Estat Català and an intellectual figure for Sílvia Orriols, according to journalist Xavier Rius Sant in the opening of his essay "Aliança Catalana: els nostres ultres " (Icaria), published on Thursday in Taifa Llibres. Before the audience, Rius dissects how the genesis of this far-right party, which is rocketing in the polls, is a combination of frustrations over the Catalan independence process , indignation in Ripoll over the 2017 attacks – these Muslim kids, who speak Catalan, whom we took in, and “look how they repay us” – and the personality of Mayor Orriols, who boasts of having been born on October 9, the same date that Jaume I expelled the Saracens from Valencia.

Several political essays, including 'L'esquerda republicana', converge on the ERC tsunami.

The event is about to snow when the Fahrenheit 451 brigade must surreptitiously rise from their stools, betrayed by their flame-resistant, glow-in-the-dark jackets, and take flight to another event. So, zooming off to the Ona bookstore, where the head of communications for the Catalan Parliament, Josep Escudé, is telling the firefighters he's just coming from another presentation. How so? Yes, right here, at Altaïr, the presentation of the book Mythologists, the Art of Seducing the Masses (Debate), by Professor Toni Aira. Politics, increasingly, is performance and visual narrative; the cover features Trump's red cap with the slogan "Make America Great Again."

But we're in Ona, where reporter Adrià Santasusagna has just blurted out: "Esquerra Republicana is a volcano right now." Will the lava continue to burn or will it crystallize into a peaceful mountain? May the volcanoes have mercy on us poor mortals, we've had enough. Some clues to delve into the incandescence of the matter appear in his essay L'esquerda republicana (The Republican Left) (La Campana), co-written with journalist Bernat Vilaró. Among the audience were ERC MP Teresa Jordà and former Parliament Speaker Carme Forcadell. Led by Isabel Garcia Pagan, deputy editor of La Vanguardia , the authors unravel the keys to the dispute between Oriol Junqueras and Marta Rovira and give the public a glimpse into the abysses that the pro-independence party has faced in recent years: prison, exile/flight, mariachis in front of the Junts headquarters, posters against Ernest Maragall that sought to "expel Alzheimer's from Barcelona" and underhand negotiations.

Talks between writers: Clara Usón ( Las fieras , Seix Barral) and Ferran Grau ( Hiperràbia , Angle) faced off on Tuesday at the Documenta bookstore between the two protagonists of the aforementioned works, the bloodthirsty ETA member Idoia López Riaño, nicknamed La Tigresa, and Ludo, one of the three young men who killed a beggar by burning her alive at an ATM in Sant Gervasi in December 2005; two different eras and a similar banality of evil. On the same day, in Finestres, two other authors, Beatriz Serrano and Andrea Genovart, chatted just for the sake of it, for the simple joy of talking. We really like these elective affinities without clock or calendar.