From 24 January to 1 February, our author and editor, Ana Cristina Herreros, Flew around India with a suitcase full Libros de las Malas Compañías (Bad Crowd Books). She wanted to tell us about her trip.
Hyderabad is one of the technological capitals of India and this year the guest country at its literature festival was Spain, and the guest language was Kannada, so Spanish and Kannada writers met up in this city.
*Poster of the fair
I participated in a talk Writing from the gut, bustin stereotype and rekindling the oral tradition, with other Spanish writers. On this occasion we talked about stereotypes, about whether it is easy or difficult to write for children and about what drives us to write and what sustains us as writers. We came to the conclusion that, when it comes to the craft of writing, guts are important.
* (from left to right) Cristina Sánchez Andrade, Marcos Guardiola, myself, Harkaitz Cano and Alejandro Palomas.
The next day, in the workshop “Monsters and other beings that inhabit the night” we imagined, with Indian children, what the beings that frighten us are like when the sun goes down and the night comes, when the lights go out and it’s time to go to sleep. First, I showed them the monsters that inhabit our nights, then I told them a story about night shadows and monsters. Then, they imagined what these scary creatures are like, afterwards we painted their faces and made a mask to hide ourselves, so the monsters wouldn’t find us. We also wrote about what monsters look like, what their habits are, where they live and how you can live with them. It was monstrously fun.
* Ana talking about monsters.
* We started to paint Monster masks
*We took polaroid pictures of the monsters so they could put them in their pockets.
In Delhi, I did a workshop on our Serie Negra (Black Series) with the students of the Instituto Cervantes in Delhi (advanced level). I began with the first contact with literature, which is oral: I sang them a lullaby, then I showed them the beginnings of the sung story: a romance: that of the Warrior Maiden (which I like a lot) and then, we moved on to the traditional tale and the African oral tradition. A journey through the history of literature and across three continents.
* Meeting with the Instituto Cervantes’ students in Delhi.
Also, at the University of Delhi, I presented our Serie Negra (Black Series) with the Spanish language students.
And we built bridges with another Indian publishing house: Vani Prakashan, with whom we are working on a book of Indian stories, collected by women (something quite unusual).
We also made contact with a festival of children’s and young adult’s literature, that is held in many places in India, and we have a joint project pending with them, in India and in Spain.
But the best of all is that we have found ourselves a literary agent for Asia and for the world if he wants, because he is one of the most honest and hard-working people in the world. But we’ll tell you about that another time.
* Photo of the whole group (Alejandro Palomas is missing, but he was there).
We would like to thank ACE (https://www.accioncultural.es) for their initiative and unconditional support. Without them, none of this would have been possible.
