2025 Program Search
Guest of Honor Pavilion
Barcelona, Invitado de Honor
Guest of Honor Pavilion
The power of the metaphor in a protocol era
Participants: Susanna Rafart, Ingrid Guardiola
Moderator: Elena Hevia

Susanna Rafart
Invitado de HonorSusanna Rafart first came to prominence as a poet in 2001, when she won the Carles Riba Prize for her book Pou de glaç (Ice Cellar). This was followed by the poetry collections Retrat en blanc (Portrait in White) and Baies (Berries), the latter awarded the Cavall Verd Poetry Prize in 2005. She later published a trilogy comprised of L’ocell a la cendra (The Bird in the Ash) (2010), La mà interior (The Inner Hand) (2011) and La llum constant (The Constant Light) (Rosa Leveroni Prize, 2012). She has also published a trilogy of dramatic poems, Beatriu o la frontera (Beautrice or the Frontier), and Contracant (2024), which includes La dona i l’arquitecte (The Woman and the Architect) and Orfeu a Lesbos (Orpheus in Lesbos), whose Spanish translation is currently in press with Mantis Editores.
Pagès Editors has published the first anthology of her poetry, El saüc i la forja (The Elder Tree and the Forge). She has participated in several international festivals, and a portion of her oeuvre has been published in Italian, English, Bulgarian and French. In 2005, Toro de Barro published a bilingual edition translated by the author herself: Molino en llamas (Mill on Fire).
She is a regular contributor to the press and to literary journals and is the author of Diccionari de la rima (Dictionary of Rhyme) (1999). As a translator, she has worked on texts by Yves Bonnefoy, Dino Campana, Salvatore Quasimodo and Franco Fortini.
A writer who moves across genres, she has published travel writing, short stories and diary‑style prose, such as Un cor grec: Memòria i notes d’un viatge (A Greek Heart: Memory and Notes of a Journey) (2006), Les tombes blanques. Contes de la Mediterrània (White Tombs. Tales of the Mediterranean) (2008) and Gaspara i jo. Sobre l’amor. Retrat oval de Gaspara Stampa amb intervencions presents (Gaspara and Me. On Love. Oval Portrait of Gaspara Stampa with Present Interventions).
Other activities involving the participant:
The Poetry Room

Ingrid Guardiola
Es ensayista, productora y realizadora, se doctoró en Humanidades por la Universidad Pompeu Fabra y desde 2010 es profesora asociada del grado de Comunicación Cultural (Documental creativo, Nuevos formatos televisivos y Creación audiovisual) en la Universidad de Girona. Desde 2016 es miembro del Consejo de Cultura del Ayuntamiento de Barcelona, enfocándose en temas como la cultura audiovisual vinculada a la desigualdad, la tecnología, el género y la cultura. Desde 2001 colabora con el Centro de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona (CCCB) mediante Soy Cámara Online, proyecto de ensayo audiovisual que desde 2010 hasta 2015 se emitió en la cadena de televisión La2 de Televisión Española.
En 2017 estrenó su primer largometraje, Casa de ningú (Casa de nadie), un docu-ensayo donde se reflexiona sobre la memoria, la productividad y el trabajo, la película formó parte del Festival Internacional de cine de Gijón, del Festival Internacional de Cine de Guadalajara en México y del De A Film Festival Barcelona, entre otros.
Other activities involving the participant:
Pódcast: Amiga date cuenta (Radio Primavera Sound)
Saturday, November 29
18:00 to 18:50
Pabellón de Barcelona, Expo Guadalajara
Barcelona, Invitado de Honor
Guest of Honor Pavilion
Talk
Participants: Javier Cercas, Elena Hevia

Javier Cercas
Invitado de HonorJavier Cercas is a Lecturer in Spanish Literature at the University of Girona, an honorary fellow of the University of Oxford and honorary lecturer at Diego Portales University in Chile. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages. His novels include The Motive, The Tenant, El vientre de la ballena (The Belly of the Whale), Soldiers of Salamis (The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, Grinzane-Cavour Prize, Chilean Critics Prize, City of Barcelona Prize, Llibreter Prize, Salambó Prize, among others), The Speed of Light (Athens Prize for Literature, Archbishop Juan de San Clemente Prize, Fernando Lara Prize, ex aequo), The Anatomy of a Moment (National Narrative Prize, Terenci Moix International Prize, Mondello Città di Palermo Prize, Prix Jean Monnet, Radovan Galonja Prize), Outlaws (Prix Méditerranée Étranger, Correntes d’Escritas Prize, Mandarache Prize), The Impostor (Prix du Livre Européen, Isola d’Elba International Prize, Ceppo di Pistoia International Prize, Archbishop Juan de San Clemente Prize, Taofen Prize for Best Foreign Novel Published in China), Lord of All the Dead (Prix Malraux), Even the Darkest Night: Terra Alta I (Planeta Prize and Dagger Prize), Independence (Terra Alta II) and El castillo de Barbazul (Terra Alta III) (Bluebeard’s Castle [Terra Alta III]) (NordSud International Prize). He has also published several miscellaneous works – Una buena temporada (A Good Season), Relatos reales (Real Tales), La verdad de Agamenón (The Truth of Agamemnon), Formas de ocultarse (Ways of Hiding), No callar (Not Keeping Silent) and La aventura de escribir (The Adventure of Writing), as well as essays such as La obra literaria de Gonzalo Suárez (The Literary Work of Gonzalo Suárez) and El punto ciego (The Blind Spot).
Other activities involving the participant:
Fiction, Tension and Memory
The privilege of turning off the light
Saturday, November 29
19:00 to 19:50
Pabellón de Barcelona, Expo Guadalajara
Barcelona, Invitado de Honor
Guest of Honor Pavilion
Tribute to Montserrat Roig +. Words in struggle
Participants: Gemma Ruiz, Begoña Gómez Urzaiz, María Mur
Moderator: Izaskun Arretxe

Gemma Ruiz
Invitado de HonorJournalist and writer. She has worked at Televisió de Catalunya’s news service since the age of 21, primarily as a cultural correspondent for Telenotícies, and is now editor-in-chief. In 2016 she published Argelagues, which became a literary phenomenon. Four years later, her novel Ca la Wenling (Wenling’s) cemented her standing with readers. With Les nostres mares (Our Mothers), she won the 62nd Sant Jordi Prize for Fiction. Her work has been translated into English, Spanish, French and Italian.
Other activities involving the participant:
Unique motherhoods
Pódcast: Amiga date cuenta. (Radio Primavera sound)

Begoña Gómez Urzaiz
Invitado de HonorBegoña Gómez Urzaiz (Tarragona, 1980) is a Barcelona-based journalist and writer. She writes regularly for La Vanguardia, co-hosts the podcast Amiga, date cuenta on Radio Primavera Sound and is a regular contributor to the programme Vostè primer on RAC1. Her bylines have appeared in publications such as El País, Vogue and Vanity Fair, and she has taught in the Master’s in Literary Journalism at the UAB. She edited and wrote the foreword to the collectively authored volume Neorrancios. Contra los peligros de la nostalgia (Neorrancios. On the Dangers of Nostalgia). The Abandoners: Of Mothers and Monsters is her first book. It has been translated into English, French, German, Portuguese and Polish and was published by Borough Press in the UK and Ireland, Norton in the US, Aufbau Verlag in Germany, Zahar in Brazil, Karakter in Poland and Stock in France.
Other activities involving the participant:
Unique motherhoods
Pódcast: Amiga date cuenta (Radio Primavera Sound)
Pódcast: Amiga date cuenta. (Radio Primavera sound)
Bad mothers
Literature by the ear
Saturday, November 29
20:00 to 20:50
Pabellón de Barcelona, Expo Guadalajara
Barcelona, Invitado de Honor
Guest of Honor Pavilion
Girls that broke the mold. The legacy of Catalan women writers
Participant: Núria Cadenes
Moderator: Lourdes Toledo

Núria Cadenes
Invitado de HonorNúria Cadenes is a writer and journalist and has worked as a bookseller. She has been living in the Valencian Country for 25 years. She has written a dozen books, including non-fiction and novels, and short stories for various anthologies. The documentary novel Guillem, won her the Lletra d’Or Award and the València Negra Award for the best novel. Tiberi Cèsar was a finalist for the Finestres and Llibreter Awards, among other prizes.
This year, she published En carn i ossos with Ara Llibres.
Other activities involving the participant:
The seduction of historical figures
Contemporary Catalan literature at a glance
Sunday, November 30
10:00 to 10:50
Pabellón de Barcelona, Expo Guadalajara
Barcelona, Invitado de Honor
Guest of Honor Pavilion
Unique motherhoods
Participants: Begoña Gómez Urzaiz, Gemma Ruiz, Elisenda Solsona
Moderator: Elena Hevia

Begoña Gómez Urzaiz
Invitado de HonorBegoña Gómez Urzaiz (Tarragona, 1980) is a Barcelona-based journalist and writer. She writes regularly for La Vanguardia, co-hosts the podcast Amiga, date cuenta on Radio Primavera Sound and is a regular contributor to the programme Vostè primer on RAC1. Her bylines have appeared in publications such as El País, Vogue and Vanity Fair, and she has taught in the Master’s in Literary Journalism at the UAB. She edited and wrote the foreword to the collectively authored volume Neorrancios. Contra los peligros de la nostalgia (Neorrancios. On the Dangers of Nostalgia). The Abandoners: Of Mothers and Monsters is her first book. It has been translated into English, French, German, Portuguese and Polish and was published by Borough Press in the UK and Ireland, Norton in the US, Aufbau Verlag in Germany, Zahar in Brazil, Karakter in Poland and Stock in France.
Other activities involving the participant:
Tribute to Montserrat Roig +. Words in struggle
Pódcast: Amiga date cuenta (Radio Primavera Sound)
Pódcast: Amiga date cuenta. (Radio Primavera sound)
Bad mothers
Literature by the ear

Gemma Ruiz
Invitado de HonorJournalist and writer. She has worked at Televisió de Catalunya’s news service since the age of 21, primarily as a cultural correspondent for Telenotícies, and is now editor-in-chief. In 2016 she published Argelagues, which became a literary phenomenon. Four years later, her novel Ca la Wenling (Wenling’s) cemented her standing with readers. With Les nostres mares (Our Mothers), she won the 62nd Sant Jordi Prize for Fiction. Her work has been translated into English, Spanish, French and Italian.
Other activities involving the participant:
Tribute to Montserrat Roig +. Words in struggle
Pódcast: Amiga date cuenta. (Radio Primavera sound)

Elisenda Solsona
Invitado de HonorElisenda Solsona (Olesa de Montserrat, 1984) is a writer and secondary school teacher. She holds undergraduate degrees in humanities, from Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), and audiovisual communication, from the University of Barcelona (UB). She also studied for the Master’s in Writing for Television and Cinema at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), and has taken several writing courses at the Obrador de la Sala Beckett and the Ateneu Barcelonès School of Writing. She has published Cirurgies (Surgeries) (Voliana Edicions, 2016), Satèl·lits (Satellites) (Males Herbes, 2019) – which won the 2020 Imperdible Prize for Best Fantasy Book in Catalan and the 2020 Ictineu Prize for Best Anthology and Best Short Story in Catalan – and Mammalia (Males Herbes, 2024), which was shortlisted for the 2025 Òmnium Prize for Best Novel in Catalan and won the Ictineu Prize for Best Fantasy Novel in Catalan. She has contributed to the anthology Autòctones (Natives) (Comanegra, 2023) and to The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories (Valancourt, 2020) with the short story ‘Mechanisms’ (translated by Mara Faye Lethem from ‘Engranatges’, originally published in Satèl·lits).
Other activities involving the participant:
The search for identity
Maps of a world yet to come: narratives of speculative fiction
Bad mothers
Sunday, November 30
11:00 to 11:50
Pabellón de Barcelona, Expo Guadalajara
Barcelona, Invitado de Honor
Guest of Honor Pavilion
Creativity
Participants: Santi Balmes, Salvador Macip, Mara Dierssen
Moderator: Pere Estupinyà

Santi Balmes
Invitado de HonorSanti Balmes, born in 1970, is the vocalist and songwriter for the indie band Love of Lesbian, with a career spanning 20 years and featuring acclaimed albums such as Maniobras de escapismo, Cuentos chinos para niños del Japón, 1999, La noche eterna. Los días no vividos and El poeta Halley. The last three albums have reached number one and gone gold without losing their trademark duality of irreverence and boundless lyricism. The band’s large concerts, both in Spain and in Latin America, are known for taking the audience on an emotional rollercoaster. Balmes has also collaborated with numerous artists from his home country. As for his literary work, he is the author of the best-selling children’s story Jo mataré monstres per tu – which has been translated into English (I Will Fight Monsters for You), Danish and Italian – the comic novel ¿Por qué me comprasteis un walkie-talkie si era hijo único? and the short story collection La doble vida de les fades. The novel La Fam Invisible continues the journey he started with his poetry collection Canción de Bruma.

Salvador Macip
Invitado de HonorSalvador Macip is a doctor, scientist and writer. He is also a professor of Molecular Medicine at the University of Leicester, Dean at the Open University of Catalonia and researcher at the BarcelonaBeta Brain Research Centre. He is the author of 43 fiction and non-fiction books.
Other activities involving the participant:
Secrets of neuroplasticity
Aging hand in hand with science

Mara Dierssen
Invitado de HonorDoctor Dierssen is Director of the Cellular and Systems Neurobiology Laboratory at the Centre for Genomic Regulation. She has made major contributions to our understanding of intellectual disability and genetic disorders. She has received numerous accolades for her work, including the prestigious Sisley-Lejeune Prize and the National Prize for Scientific Culture awarded by the Government of Catalonia, as well as the Ramón Trias Fargas, Jaime Blanco and Fundación Esteve prizes. These distinctions led to an invitation to contribute to Nature Reviews Neuroscience (2012) and to her election as a member of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Catalonia and the Academia Europaea. She has also been awarded the Silver Medal of the College of Physicians, of which she is an honorary member, and recognised as a Distinguished Alumna of the University of Cantabria.
Other activities involving the participant:
Secrets of neuroplasticity
Authoritarianism: a threat to science

Pere Estupinyà
Invitado de HonorPere Estupinyà is a biochemist and science communicator. He is the presenter and director of El Cazador de Cerebros on TVE and the host of the science segment on A vivir (Cadena SER). A former Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, he has written five books and won the CSIC–FBBVA Award for Best Science Journalist in 2024.
Other activities involving the participant:
The secrets of the brain
Sunday, November 30
12:00 to 12:50
Pabellón de Barcelona, Expo Guadalajara
Barcelona, Invitado de Honor
Guest of Honor Pavilion
Pódcast: Amiga date cuenta (Radio Primavera Sound)
Participants: Begoña Gómez Urzaiz, Noelia Ramírez, Ingrid Guardiola

Begoña Gómez Urzaiz
Invitado de HonorBegoña Gómez Urzaiz (Tarragona, 1980) is a Barcelona-based journalist and writer. She writes regularly for La Vanguardia, co-hosts the podcast Amiga, date cuenta on Radio Primavera Sound and is a regular contributor to the programme Vostè primer on RAC1. Her bylines have appeared in publications such as El País, Vogue and Vanity Fair, and she has taught in the Master’s in Literary Journalism at the UAB. She edited and wrote the foreword to the collectively authored volume Neorrancios. Contra los peligros de la nostalgia (Neorrancios. On the Dangers of Nostalgia). The Abandoners: Of Mothers and Monsters is her first book. It has been translated into English, French, German, Portuguese and Polish and was published by Borough Press in the UK and Ireland, Norton in the US, Aufbau Verlag in Germany, Zahar in Brazil, Karakter in Poland and Stock in France.
Other activities involving the participant:
Tribute to Montserrat Roig +. Words in struggle
Unique motherhoods
Pódcast: Amiga date cuenta. (Radio Primavera sound)
Bad mothers
Literature by the ear

Ingrid Guardiola
Es ensayista, productora y realizadora, se doctoró en Humanidades por la Universidad Pompeu Fabra y desde 2010 es profesora asociada del grado de Comunicación Cultural (Documental creativo, Nuevos formatos televisivos y Creación audiovisual) en la Universidad de Girona. Desde 2016 es miembro del Consejo de Cultura del Ayuntamiento de Barcelona, enfocándose en temas como la cultura audiovisual vinculada a la desigualdad, la tecnología, el género y la cultura. Desde 2001 colabora con el Centro de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona (CCCB) mediante Soy Cámara Online, proyecto de ensayo audiovisual que desde 2010 hasta 2015 se emitió en la cadena de televisión La2 de Televisión Española.
En 2017 estrenó su primer largometraje, Casa de ningú (Casa de nadie), un docu-ensayo donde se reflexiona sobre la memoria, la productividad y el trabajo, la película formó parte del Festival Internacional de cine de Gijón, del Festival Internacional de Cine de Guadalajara en México y del De A Film Festival Barcelona, entre otros.
Other activities involving the participant:
The power of the metaphor in a protocol era
Sunday, November 30
13:00 to 14:15
Pabellón de Barcelona, Expo Guadalajara
Barcelona, Invitado de Honor
Guest of Honor Pavilion
Literature and democratic resistence: debate or combat (Foreign Action of Generalitat)
Participants: Jorge Volpi, Cristian Canton, Sira Abenoza
Moderator: Marta Nin I Camps

Sira Abenoza
Doctora en filosofía y directora de La Casa dels Clàssics. Más allá de su compromiso con la difusión universal de los clásicos, es fundadora y directora del Institute for Socratic Dialogue, una fundación que impulsa el diálogo socrático como herramienta de inclusión y promoción de la justicia. Su trabajo puede verse reflejado en los documentales Filosofia a la presó (premio Seminci al Mejor Documental, 2015), sobre el curso de diálogo socrático que imparte en las cárceles catalanas, e In dialogue, que refleja una mesa de diálogo entre exterroristas en Irlanda del Norte. Ha sido consultora de RSC y sostenibilidad en sectores como la banca, la energía y la agroalimentación durante quince años, y ha impulsado proyectos de emprendimiento social en Centroamérica. Actualmente, es profesora del Departamento de Sociedad, Política y Sostenibilidad de ESADE, investigadora del Instituto de Innovación Social y directora del Programa Vicens Vives. Colabora con Núvol y elDiario.es, y es autora de publicaciones como No consentiràs pensaments impurs (Fragmenta, 2024) y Consejo de familia: el órgano que sostiene el salto generacional (Harvard Deusto Business Review, 2025).
Other activities involving the participant:
An argument called desire
Sunday, November 30
16:00 to 16:50
Pabellón de Barcelona, Expo Guadalajara
Barcelona, Invitado de Honor
Guest of Honor Pavilion
Poetry recital
Participants: Josep Pedrals, Jorge Ortega, José Eugenio Sánchez

Josep Pedrals
Invitado de HonorJosep Pedrals has devoted himself to poetry from multiple fronts: he writes works that explore the genre (novelised essays on poetics and life), recites poetry professionally (with appearances across Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa), teaches poetry through courses and lectures (at universities, secondary schools and primary schools) and promotes it across various media (currently in El País, on Cadena SER, the podcast Tenim paraula by 3Cat and the magazines Esguard and Cavall Fort). He has organised a wide range of poetic events, including regular series (he hosted the legendary poetry nights at the Horiginal bar for thirteen years) and festivals (he co-directed the Barcelona Poesia festival from 2020 to 2023). He also writes lyrics for various composers, brings theatricality to verse and concerns himself with many other forms of poetic expression.
Other activities involving the participant:
Tribute to Jacint Verdaguer. The poet of the soul
Sunday, November 30
17:00 to 17:50
Pabellón de Barcelona, Expo Guadalajara
Barcelona, Invitado de Honor
Guest of Honor Pavilion
The album in Barcelona
Participants: Rocío Bonilla, Xavier Salomó, Negrescolor
Moderator: Lluis Zendrera

Rocío Bonilla
Invitado de HonorRocio Bonilla is a children’s book author and illustrator based in Barcelona. She holds a degree in Fine Arts and has worked in various fields such as photography, mural painting, education, and advertising—an area that kept her away from drawing for twelve years.
In 2011, she discovered editorial illustration by chance, and in 2014, she began writing her own stories, publishing Cara de pájaro, her first picture book as both author and illustrator. A year later, she released ¿De qué color es un beso? (What Color Is a Kiss?), the work that launched her onto the international publishing scene.
To date, she has published more than seventy illustrated books, some as a solo creator—such as La montaña de libros más alta del mundo (The Highest Mountain of Books in the World), ¡Hermanos! (Siblings!), Gracias. Historia de un vecindario (Thanks: The Story of a Neighborhood), and La pandilla de los 11 (The Gang of Eleven)—and others in collaboration with authors including Susanna Isern (El gran libro de los superpoderes / The Great Book of Superpowers), Elisenda Roca (Una gran familia / One Big Family), Eulàlia Canal (Los fantasmas no llaman a la puerta / Ghosts Don’t Knock on Doors), and Meritxell Martí (El consultorio de la señora Ánser / Mrs. Goose’s Advice Clinic).
Her picture books have received numerous national and international awards, including the Premio Crítica Serra d’Or, the Premio Libro Kirico, the Prix du Livre Vivant, and finalist distinctions in the Little Hakka Awards and the Young Readers Golden Medal (California).
She was ed in 2018 by the Fundación Cuatrogatos, and her work was featured at the Bratislava Biennial of Illustration (2019) and at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair (2021), where it was included among the one hundred best books for early childhood.
Minimoni is her most beloved and recognizable character. Her books have been translated into more than thirty languages worldwide. Her latest literary adventure takes her into children’s fiction with the series Lucas Kent & Greta Rouge, which she also illustrates.
Other activities involving the participant:
Connecting Talents: Collaborative Experiences in Illustrated Books

Xavier Salomó
Invitado de HonorJust before completing his illustration studies at the Massana School in Barcelona, Xavier (Sabadell, 1976) met Meritxell Martí (Sabadell, 1972) in a bookshop. That encounter marked a turning point in his life. Before then, he had co-founded a small horror film production company with friends, creating ultra-low-budget films that were more comical than frightening. He also directed theatre productions and drew comics for fanzines. Together with Meritxell, he began publishing illustrated books, some in France. In recent years, their international profile has grown, with their books now translated into (so far) 24 languages. Their career has been recognised with several awards, including the Prix du livre vivant (2024), the Icelandic Booksellers’ Prize (2023), the Quebec Booksellers’ Prize (2022) and the Atrapallibres Prize (2021).

Negrescolor
Invitado de HonorBorn in Barcelona in 1978. He studied at Escola Massana. He works as an illustrator and participates in various socially engaged projects. His work has received major recognitions, including the Junceda Award, the Bologna Illustrators Exhibition, the Golden Pinwheel (China), the White Ravens List, and the Bologna Ragazzi Award.
Other activities involving the participant:
From illustration to space
Artistic creation and at-risk childhoods
Sunday, November 30
18:00 to 18:50
Pabellón de Barcelona, Expo Guadalajara
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