The good health of narrative journalism or when reality surpasses fiction
Many books have been written about Pope Francis, his entourage, and his predecessors. However, few, beyond the recent memoirs published by his own hand, have appealed to such a broad, and not necessarily religious, audience as Javier Cercas's recently published book, El loco de Dios en el fin del mundo (The Madman of God at the End of the World ) (Random House), which places the Pope and the Vatican at the center of the plot. So much so that this Sant Jordi it became the best-selling non-fiction book in Spanish.
“Beyond the topicality, one of the reasons for the success is the way it's told. It's a long chronicle. That is, narrative journalism, or, as it can also be called, a nonfiction novel,” analyzes editor Jaume Bonfill, for whom “autofiction is out of date. That doesn't mean we don't want to continue knowing what's happening to people and their surroundings, both in our time and in others. And this is a good formula.”
Pope Francis converses with Javier Cercas
Random HouseWhile it's not a mainstream genre, it's worth noting that more and more publishers are taking the plunge and creating their own collections, such as Capitán Swing, Anagrama, Random House, Reservoir Books, Península, Ara Llibres, and Saldonar, among others. At the Gabo Foundation—created by the Nobel Prize winner to promote ethical and quality journalism—project director Daniel Marquínez finds a possible explanation: "The media are devoting less and less space to chronicles," due to the crisis in the sector and the paper market. "But that doesn't mean they're disappearing; rather, they're transforming, and increasingly, they're doing so in book format."
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For writer and critic Julià Guillamon, the rise of non-fiction is due to "a major crisis in fiction, which has been partly revealed by major audiovisual productions. There are many ways to narrate, and the novel is neither the only one nor the best." One of the problems this entails has to do with classification, he asserts. He exemplifies this with his own works: "I have even seen my book about the boxer Pedro Roca – Nobody Will Ever See Me in a Ring (Comanegra, 2014) – in the sports section, when it has nothing to do with it, and New Hours (Anagrama, 2022), because it has apples on the cover, was in the agriculture section..."
Autofiction is out of date. That doesn't mean we don't want to continue knowing what's happening to people and their surroundings. Jaume Bonfill Editor
Without going any further, his latest work, El rellotge verd (Anagrama), has little to do with a memoir: "What genre is it? The one I invented to write it, as I did in my book on the literature of exile, El dia revolt (Empúries, 2008, revised in 2023), which is also a travel book, with a lot of narrative and journalism." "Even today, non-fiction is often disregarded, as literature seems to take precedence over classification. Clearly, no one can say that Josep Pla's work is minor. If you're a lively writer, you like to mix genres," the writer assures.
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It's been many years since 2011 that the Madrid-based publisher Libros del KO has specialized in journalistic chronicles. Emilio Sánchez Mediavilla, one of the founders, recalls how the project emerged after the 2008 crisis, when the media outlet where he worked closed. "As a journalist, I'd always dreamed of starting a magazine. And a publishing house is a magazine in other ways, so a group of friends took the plunge." The bestseller in its catalog is Fariña, by Nacho Carretero, which addresses drug trafficking in Galicia. Another more recent title highlighted by the publisher is Las hijas horribles , by Blanca Lacasa, which focuses on mother-daughter relationships.
Julià Guillamon has found his books on shelves he didn't belong on and associates it with a crisis in fiction.
Pau Venteo / Shooting / CollaboratorsLeila Guerriero is another clear example of the genre. When she started out as a journalist, she began working for a magazine and, as she explains to this newspaper, "I wasn't aware that what I was doing was called narrative journalism; it's a label I've learned over the years." Currently, her chronicle books have been translated into several languages. Her latest, *The Call* (Anagrama), tells the story of Silvia Labayru, kidnapped and tortured during the military dictatorship in Argentina.
“It's not always easy to find a topic. I make sure it's interesting to readers from very different countries,” says Guerriero, who doesn't believe a work of this nature couldn't be written by someone outside the profession. “David Foster Wallace wasn't one of them, and he did some magnificent work.” However, he points out: “Not everyone is willing to engage in the extensive scope a journalist deploys to corroborate information. And that's an essential part of making it all make sense.”
Not everyone is willing to undertake the extensive range of tools that a journalist deploys to corroborate information. Leila Guerriero Journalist
Silvia Sesé, editor of Guerriero, announces that the 16th edition of La llamada has just been launched. Regarding the genre, she notes that, "rather than explosive growth, what we've observed over the years is a sustained loyalty that has accompanied our Crónicas collection since its inception in 1987."
Jorge Carrión does believe that narrative journalism is experiencing a golden age. In 2012, he published an anthology of chronicles titled Better Than Fiction in Anagrama—and in 2023 reissued it in Almadía—in 2023. There, he explains that “internationally, the boom came with Carrère's The Adversary in 2000. In Spain, with Cercas's Anatomy of an Instant in 2009, about the attempted coup d'état of February 23rd; and the acclaim came with Aleksievich's Nobel Prize in 2015.” Carrión is an author introduced here by Debate in Spanish and Raig Verd in Catalan with, among others, Voices from Chernobyl .
Martín Caparrós, Argentine writer and journalist
Mané Espinosa / OwnOther leading figures include Martín Caparrós and Juan Villoro. The latter led a workshop in Barcelona in mid-March that brought together fifteen narrators to develop their journalistic and narrative projects. Caparrós, for his part, won this year's Manu Leguineche Chair International Journalism Award for "his extraordinary contribution to the renaissance of journalistic reporting in Spanish."
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Editors from various publishing houses are celebrating the increasing number of narrative journalism manuscripts arriving in Spanish and Catalan, as is the case with Xavier Aldekoa and his various books focused on the African continent. Until recently, almost all of them came from the US and the UK. However, works from these countries are even more widespread, featuring names such as Patrick Radden Keefe , Nathan Thrall , and David Grann. The latter has just published The Shipwreck of the Wager (Random House/Ara Narrativa), which reveals the odyssey of the survivors of a British Royal Navy ship.
The media is devoting less and less space to chronicles, which is why there are more books. Daniel Marquínez, Project Director of the Gabo Foundation
Of the other two, the most notable are Snakehead (Reservoir Books/Periscopi), which introduces readers to the underground world of human trafficking; and A Day in the Life of Abed Salama (Anagrama/Periscopi), a harrowing portrait of daily life for Palestinians under Israeli occupation that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize.
Miquel Adam founded the publishing house La Segona Perifèria in 2022, and from the beginning he was clear that “the level of fiction and non-fiction are comparable, and they should be treated equally. In fact, it is a cliché that reality surpasses fiction. To understand the world, a report is often not enough, as happened to Richard Lloyd Parry, who, after writing chronicles for The Times about the devastating 2011 tsunami, found that they were not enough to convey the pain, and spent years writing it in Fantasmes del tsunami ”. One of his most recent titles is El meu país estimat , in which Ielena Kostiutxenko “describes what it is like to live under Putin’s regime”.
Journalist Patrick Radden Keefe is another of the leading names in narrative journalism.
Ana Jiménez / OwnAnother book from the publishing house in this vein is Matar el nervi (in Spanish from Random House), by Anna Pazos, which captures the vital impulse of a young woman under construction. Another author who also explores this literature is Júlia Bacardit, who has published three books in the last two years: Un dietari sentimental (Medusa), Raval a deshora (Núvol), and Corresponsal d'enlloc (Pòrtic), works that draw on reality: “I'm interested in journalism, my profession, and also in writing, and life is already part of literature, although it's also true that it wasn't a very conscious decision; it was very natural,” she says, recalling the influence of Svetlana Aleksievich, “although she deals with tremendous themes, I try to maintain her focus.”
Because it's not, of course, a new genre. There's Truman Capote's In Cold Blood , García Márquez's News of a Kidnapping , or Günter Wallraff 's equally legendary The Scapegoat , books that set trends and paved the way for those that came after them.
The level of fiction and non-fiction is comparable, and they should be treated equally.” Miquel Adam Editor
Another author is Albert Forns, whose latest book, I el cel ens va caure al damunt (Edicions 62), recounts the bombing of Granollers on May 31, 1938, which was silenced during the long postwar period and the dictatorship. The writer investigated it by interviewing survivors, but also by drawing on the municipality's archive of oral sources to reconstruct the events. "There are many better stories than the ones I could invent, because I also think we like them more if we know they're real. The fabrication is minimal, but you have to know the facts thoroughly, and although sometimes you can't do any fancy work, documentation allows you to complete the narrative," he asserts.
Journalist Carles Porta, a leading figure in narrative journalism and true crime.
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There's also a lot of movement in Catalan, with the very recent La fugida (Columna) by Mayka Navarro and Paco Marco; Les rutes del sublime (Univers) by Natàlia Romaní; a good part of the work of Francesc Serés—such as his recent El món interior (Proa)—; or La veritat del cas Comorera , which Antoni Batista has just published with Ara Llibres, a specialist in all forms of non-fiction and with a new collection, Ara Narrativa, based on this perspective, with works such as Núria Cadenes's short stories, En carn i ossos .
The fabrication is minimal, but the facts must be thoroughly known. Albert Forns Journalist
The Saldonar Contrastos collection has published El guàrdia de Sing Sing, with Ted Conover infiltrating a prison; two long reports by Josep Lluís Micó in La profunditat de les butxaques , or, without going any further, Leila Guerriero translated in Els suïcides de la fin del món . Then there is the case of Navona and Folch&Folch, who have published Hua Hsu's powerful book (in Catalan and Spanish) Be Yourself or—also in both languages—Vincenç Pagès Jordà's posthumous book, Kennedyana , since non-fiction has been one of their priorities from the beginning.
Children of Carles Porta or the true crime veinThere has always been crime chronicles, but when Carles Porta published Tor. Tretze cases i tres morts (La Campana) in 2005 –based on the first report broadcast on TV3 in 1997–, in addition to sweeping sales, it began a cycle of renewed growth in the genre, now reconverted for the general public as true crime , and which later, with the radio and television program Crims , has reached the written page, with five books for the moment –in addition to other works by Porta, such as Fago or Li deien pare , winner of the 5th Godó Prize for Reporting and Journalistic Essay. Thus, in recent years there have been successes of all kinds, by writers such as Pep Coll and his Dos taüts negres i dos de blancs , and many journalists such as Mayka Navarro – Desmontando el crimenperfecto , (AlRevés/Columna, 2020)–, Enrique Figueredo and Pere Cullell – Mala gente (Columna/Destino, 2023)–, Tura Soler –solo or with Jordi Grau, like the recent Sense pietat. Vuit crims terrible i cruels (La Campana)-, Josep Sala Cullell – The mysterious death of Dolors Bernabeu (Pòrtic 2023)–, or The most shocking cases of the coroner Narcís Bardalet, with Clàudia Pujol (Ara Llibres). Among the recent international works of the genre are books such as Un rastre de violència (Comanegra, 2024), in which Mark O'Connell narrates the case of the most famous murder in Ireland, or La ciudad de los vivir (Random House, Llibres del segle, 2022), in which Nicola Lagioia narrates a case that shocked Rome.
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