Bruno Blog

We have some days to rest and recharge batteries in order to be in full swing after Easter Holidays. These past few months have been hectic, with the London and the Bologna Book Fair, and tons of hard work so that every book can find a publisher.

We come back on Tuesday 18^th of April with our best smiles and with Saint George’s day around the corner. We hope we can live once again a wonderful book day celebration.

Therefore, the team of Sandra Bruna’s Literary Agency wishes you a happy Easter. Don’t forget to open your mind and travel with a great book!

Check my recommendations and catalogues in our webpage.

Second term is almost over. This week is the Bologna’s Children Book Fair and Catalan is the literature invited. We’re going to be there with all our titles written in Catalan, a language we want to take care of, and also with all the titles from other countries, obviously. However, I’m glad that a fair such as this, the most important one regarding children and YA, takes into account the Catalan language and helps us open our way into the market, because Catalan authors can’t always have a translation into Spanish and it’s very complicated to sell their books to other countries when it’s been written only in Catalan. Therefore, let’s take this opportunity because every language is enriching and ours has really great authors that help it make it even better.

Bologna is a pretty fair, more relaxing than Frankfurt, but not less important because Children and YA’s literature keeps giving us many joys. The sales of books such as THE FAULT IN OUR STARS, by John Green; THE TRIALS OF APOLLO: THE HIDDEN ORACLE, MAGNUS CHASE AND THE GODS OF ASGARD, by Rick Riordan; the FALLEN series, by Lauren Kate; the saga DIVERGENT, by Veronica Roth or THE LUNAR CHRONICLES, by Marissa Meyer, have allowed us to take a breath in times of crisis and they continue to sell nowadays. So, a literature that had been ignored in the past, is now a driving force in the publishing world and, in our agency in particular, has always been one of its strongest points.

If books exist at home, children and teenagers are going to end up falling in love with it. In a house with no books, it’s difficult for new generations to get hooked on reading, but not impossible. However, I want to encourage parents not to leave this matter only in school’s hands, because we still have a lot of work to do in the family environment and, with everyone’s help, we can achieve that the ones that come after us keep enjoying books. For the ones who are already doing this, we know that it’s one of the biggest pleasures in life and that anyone who doesn’t read is missing on a lot of things. So, today, I’m going to leave you with the complete Bologna’s catalogue so you can enjoy our novelties that are about to come out shortly and that we try they get to other markets. I wish each of these titles triumphs in our country and encourages many kids and teenagers to live life with the best of companions: a good book.

There are moments in life where you’d like to run away. Leave everything behind and flee from a present that you don’t like, that it isn’t what you want. However, there aren’t many brave people who dare to break free from everything and pursue their dreams, their wishes, their freedom. I’m an example of that. I’m not brave enough to run away without a clear goal –I guess because I don’t have an acute need to do so. However, I learn each day that when one is convinced of what they do and why they do it, everything flows way better, although the path to put it into practice is long, hard, and needs some time to mature.

It’s difficult to change suddenly what you’ve learnt or have been imposed since you were a kid, but not for the protagonist of Cari Ariño’s latest novel, Alicia, who after suffering a heartbreak, she goes to France searching for the grandfather she never met. She’s brave and breaks free from her life in order to carry on and move forward. There, she’ll meet Julien, a bohemian tour guide, who will put her in contact with Baptiste, who’ll tell Alicia about his past as an exiled. The story of the three characters will connect with the mystery of Biel, a missing anarchist after the escape of the Spanish Civil War losers. Biel gave up the love of his life and his daughter (another difficult decision, I don’t know if it’s brave or not, but it is indeed a complicated one). Alicia and Julien like each other, but the past they start discovering will test them, a test on which their future will depend.

A heartfelt novel that hooks you and makes you fall in love with these brave characters, who are kind of long-distance runners –which we all are, more or less, in this life–, and that move towards truth, forgiveness, and the discovery of one’s self. These three things are, most of the time, hard to understand, but love and hope can heal mistakes and wounds from the past.

Cari Ariño moves a step forward with this second novel, because although the story has an historical background very interesting, the plotline and the characters are what keep you at the edge of your seat, which makes that this book is perfect for readers of historical books and anyone who enjoys a brave story, well written and with HUGE characters, that hold your hand and don’t let you go until the very end. Her first novel, EL LATIDO DEL TIEMPO, was already a big success, and with this second novel, LA RUEDA DEL OLVIDO, her readers will be even more loyal to her and will catch newer ones, without a doubt.

Congratulations Cari, a great novel for this Sant Jordi (Saint George’s day).

Life goes on and you start getting older. I’m happy to be able to do so, truly. I’m here, but I confess that, sometimes, I’ve got the feeling that time slips through my fingers and everything goes by too fast. I’d like to stop the clock and live more intensely this period where everything is good. My family, my work, my friends. It’s what I want: to be OK, to be happy and for the people surrounding me to be happy as well, so we can all share it. Even though I’ve got moments of wistfulness from the past, like those long summers, going out with friends until really late at night after having danced like crazy, moments of peace in which to talk to your best friend without mattering where, how or when… I believe, as well, that this current period that I’m living now is comfortable, and the only thing I’d like to have is more time for everything, and not let good moments slip by so quickly. I’d like to catch them on the fly and keep them in a box so that everything would be in slow motion, and appreciate them without haste. And I’m learning that if you want to, you can do it. You just have to be ready to do so, and believe it.

That’s why the book by Alfred and David Picó, BOJOS PER LA MÚSICA DELS 80! (‘CRAZY FOR THE MUSIC OF THE 80s’) has reminded me of the greatest moments I’d love to relive, along with sound tracks such as ‘Bailando’, from Alaska; ‘The river’, by Bruce Springsteen; ‘Taken on me’, by a-Ha; or ‘Thriller’, by Michael Jackson. It gives me the feeling that in the 90s, when we listened to music from the 80s, everything was slower and longer, but it’s not true, because you feel it more strongly as time goes by and you take consciousness of it. As a 20-year-old you still don’t have the feeling that time is slipping by, and reading this book by the Picó brothers is a breath of fresh air, of memories, that can be the perfect gift for this Saint George’s day for anyone who loves music and for anyone that manages to remember unforgettable moments in life through music, with a soundtrack playing on the background wherever they go.

Music, like books, are a part of life, they make it richer, and this mix of music and books becomes the perfect gift for when you want to take a break, relax and start to think about magical moments, making a mental album of those memories and trying to enjoy them once again, here and now, because if you want to, you can do it. Even more so if music comes along with you.

This week I’m writing from London, a city that I like more each time I come. It was the first city where I travelled alone, to do an internship in the Blake Friedmann agency when I was just 19 years old and it was, truthfully, an experience that helped me a lot, although at nineteen it was hard for me to know that, and I could never imagine I’d get to where I am today. It made me grow up suddenly, as I had to get out of my comfort zone and sharpen my wits. I was fearful, but I had to do it to improve my English and travel to Frankfurt, my first Book Fair, in 1993. It was intense, I missed my family, my friends, but I don’t regret it and, with time, I see that there are moments in life that come as challenges you must overcome, and that was one of them.

Today, unfortunately, Carole Blake is no longer with us, but I’ll always be grateful to her for having taken me in with such kindness, and for having been able to see live the work of a foreign literary agency. The literary world is fascinating, but difficult, and agencies have a difficult role in its inner workings. As years go by, I understand much better some of the attitudes my predecessors had, because the road ahead is not easy, and you need a certain kind of character to succeed -and a little bit of magic, I can assure you. I’ve been lucky to have met lots and different agents from whom I’ve learnt, and still there’s much to do and magic to discover.

This week I’ll leave you with the link of our London Book Fair catalogue, with all the novelties that we believe can travel more easily to other countries. As always, our selling team is in London with tons of excitement and illusion to get as many translations as possible, so I send you lots of positive energy to live another fair with a smile so we can achieve those dreams. And let’s not forget our motto: “There’s a book for every publisher, and a publisher for every book”. Our mission is to find them and connect them. The magic comes with us, and it’s in our pockets.

Have a good fair everyone!