Bruno Blog

This week we are in LBF, and being able to sell book Rights in such an amazing city is a privilege. Getting to see, once again, our publishers from around the world, many of them who are already friends is such a joy. Being able to talk face to face, realising they have fallen in Love with that author we fell in Love, and with whom we’ve worked so hard to make the rest Love as much as we do, it is extraordinary. However, translating our authors into foreign languages is not an easy task at all, since you have to be very cautious with the path you decide the title to follow, so that the sale is a massive success.

London this year has been so special since we have celebrated Francesc Miralles’ and Hector Garcia’s have been translated into 42 countries, but we have properly celebrated these amazing news with a special event in a Japanese tea shop, where the Authors revealed and explained their new and exciting project. This means lots of work, but it also means we’ve had the chance to meet some amazing publishers to whom we’ve been pleased to show the amazing material we gather such as Alejandro Palomas or Care Santos, that even though sometimes it is harder to sell in International Markets, they have achieved an faithful reading team in each country, because with hard work, patience and effort, anything can be achieved.

We are very excited with all the titles in our catalogue, and we thoroughly believe each and every one of it deserves to have its way and its space, although finding them is not always an easy work, but it is a work that through patience and persistence can definitely be achieved.

I’m sure there are many chances on the way, and we will not let any of them escape. We are back, with the trolley full of work, but looking forward to begin. Stronger than ever, ready to make our catalogue reach the stars. There we go!

Feelings are a hot topic in the world we are living in, since we often hesitate whether to publicly show them or not. Since I was a kid I’ve always enjoyed showing how I feel: hugging, kissing, caring for people. My siblings used to tell me I was annoying as whenever I had a chance I gave them a hug or a kiss. As I grew older it was harder for me to express those feelings, curious as it may be. I am trying to overcome that now I’m aware of it. There have been points in my life in which I’ve not been so at all, therefore I am tried to control my feelings so much up to the point to not even feel. Once I reached that point I knew it was about time to change. I think being able to say ‘I love you’, give a kiss, or a hug, is something we should never avoid. After a period of time in which our feelings have been deeply hidden, it is not easy to go back to normal but we have to try, to really try. Because when you stop feeling, you stop living.

Gaspar Hernández is the feelings erudite, and his newest novel is devoted specially to them. LA MUJER QUE NO SABÍA LLORAR published by Destino and Columna, on sale today, is the story of a woman who blocked her feeling to the point she was not even able to cry, not a chance. Not in funerals, nor in drama movies. Not even trying to provoke sadness. A colossal blocking. Her being a sexologist – one of the first sex experts during a time sex was a massive taboo-, she managed her mental blocking by settling down herself. Sex was a way of scaping, a way of moving forward. An insatiable woman. But sex is a way of vital energy. It’s got an spiritual dimension. Sex well performed can be a way to the great awakening. AND NOT ONLY SEX, but anything we consciously do, anything will open up our eyes and our hearts.

The narrator of the “La mujer que no sabía llorar”, author’s alter ego, met the famous sexologist, Daniela Costa-Pau, when he was only seventeen while he was working in a small journal as a scholarship. He edited her sex articles. Because of that relationship he got to know her story, a fascinating story on sexuality and sexual freedom, of highly sensitivity and about repressed feelings, Ayahuasca and people’s development and evolution. As he did with his pervious titles, EL SILENCIO, an amazing bestseller with over 60.000 examples sold, and LA TERAPEUTA, Gaspar explains how feelings affect our daily life, but instead of writing an essay on it, he discovers the plot through a marvelously written story making us deeply fall in love, as all his work does. A great novel, a great topic to wonder and think, a love story which completely traps you from beginning to end, suitable for all audiences who are looking for a different novel. If you are looking for that you must check this one out.

This week Bologna Children’s Book Fair has taken place, we’ve taken a break, and now we are stronger than ever to face London. In May, we will travel to New York and we will also attend Madrid’s Book Fair, so great things are about to happen for sure. In our suitcases, we carry our authors and their novels, so that wherever we travel we find publishers all over the world that fall in love with our catalogue. We also carry our illusion, our determination, our hard work so that all together we can find the right place for our titles. The only way to succeed is through patience, we all know that, but the truth is we truly believe anything can happen, since we are truly confident with what we have. So I hope these holidays bring us back together full of good energy. The marathon has just began, we have trained and we are ready for it, and the best is we will face its final sprint with the best company: our books.

Attached here, our catalogues so that everyone has a perfectly matched title this break. Attached, also, the catalogues we have prepared for Bologna and London (specially prepared for the publishers who are looking for the best).

Have a nice break and remember the best company for a holiday is a book, or more than one.

There is no doubt that social media is, nowadays, the way to communicate for teenagers, and for adults as well. Sometimes it is excessive, since we are losing face to face contact, we don’t listen, and everything is said through our phones, through the screens, without looking in the eyes, without facing the other. When written, and when the other person is not in front, everything seems easier, but it is a double-edged sword, since whatever is written, is never going to disappear. Those moments we did highly enjoy, as meeting our friends after a phone call are disappearing, since now only a WhatsApp is needed. A phone call for your birthday is no longer a requirement since a WhatsApp message does the job. It is getting harder and harder to listen to somebody’s voice, even at work, where most issues are handled via email. It is faster, of course, but human warmth is lost, proximity, and the feeling of feeling that person close to you. Words, tone, are crucial when understanding and through e-mail, they definitely cannot be equally understood. Screens are cold, making us become as cold as they are.

This is why David Lozano’s latest novel DESCONOCIDOS aims to show the good and the bad of these relationships established through social media. Lara and Wilde were meant to be perfect, their first date, after a few months chatting away, they would finally meet face to face. That same night the inspector Irene Castells investigates the murderer of a teenager whose face is completely smashed, and who carries a photograph in his jacket. David Lozano will play with the reader and the characters will take us to deep lands the reader won’t be able to leave. This book is such a page-turner, as the Americans claim, since you need to know what goes on in the following page, you need to know whether both stories are related or are, simply, parallel stories. The novel falls short, it moves fast and its clever plot twists, great for giving a panoramic perspective of what it means to always being online. It is absolutely amazing. An Edebé Award winning novel, well deserved, for a great author for a book which will delight young readers as well as those who are not so young. An entertaining novel, overall, but a novel which shows what is going on in our society in which a ‘like’ can be very harmful. Thank you, David, for creating such an amazing thriller, so voracious, a thriller which definitely teaches us many things.

This week, social media has become an ocean filled with fishes swimming. Little fishes looking for Gabriel, the missing boy from Almería. These last few days we’ve been keeping an eye on this story, which, unfortunately has not had the end all of us were wishing for. My heart breaks whenever I think how it must feel to lose a child, I cannot picture it in my mind. There is nothing worse that could possibly happen, and I really do admire his parents, that in this extreme situation have asked for peace, not hate. Kids are life, there is nothing bad in their essence, hence why they should never suffer, they do not deserve it. No one should ever suffer, neither the adults nor the kids. We should be able to live fearlessly, happily, joyfully in a better world. A world we are fully responsible of, and we should teach the new generations to create it always humbly, honestly and far away from violence.

This is why, when reading Empar Fernández’s IRINA, I was able to also feel that “pain”. A pain some kids were exposed from 1937 to 1939 when they had to escape the Spanish Civil War. Many of which were fostered in cold Russia. They had to begin over new, adapt to a new world which was about to change, again, because of the explosion of World War II. They would have to suffer again. They would be exposed, once more, to pain, to suffering, to being alone. They had to overcome whatever they were exposed to, they had no other choice. Irina’s story traps you, hits you, breaks you, you just cannot ignore it. It is a piece of history from an eight years old girl’s perspective, through her eyes. She is aware she has to go on with her life, on her own, besides living in a cruel and unfair world. A world which also grants her a home, a place to stay, although it is not how she would like it to be. Irina is one of those characters which stays in the reader’s mind forever, as Gabriel’s smile, which we will never forget. I wish we could live in an ocean filled of nice little fishes swimming to find happiness, to reach peace. A clear sea in which hate did not exist and union, friendship and the will to build a better world, ruled. As in Irina’s times although some kids were never able to reach the deserved peaceful destiny. IRINA is such an amazing novel. Empar, as always, has been able to smartly build a story. A vibrating story. A story that dives into the deep end.