From names to worlds

The Festival 42 is back for the fourth year running, filling the city with big names from home and abroad in science-fiction, fantasy, horror and all the other fantasy genres, with the perspective of young readers also well represented. The growth of the 42 in just a few years is good news in three ways: firstly, as it demonstrates and helps to nourish the fine moment of narratives in this genre in our part of the world and around the globe, with new names, new trends and an interest from publishers that just keeps getting stronger, renewing and updating the canon of our literature; secondly, as the growing number of visitor to the festival, with nearly eight thousand people in five days, demonstrates that the topics addressed (the climate, technology, fears and monsters, the future, social, cultural and emotional change, imagination and creativity) are as well received as the codes and projects, often innovative, of the guest authors; and thirdly, because by becoming a leading literary festival so quickly, and not just in our part of the world, the 42 has an unparalleled role in encouraging reading, debate, the exchange of ideas, cultural enjoyment and the celebration of talent, which, judging by this year's programme, we have no doubt will be repeated once again.

And so we celebrate the arrival of this fourth edition in November, once again at the Fabra i Coats centre, from Wednesday to Sunday and with 150 participants from over 15 countries around the world. This year’s festival is structured around various themes: dragons, widely represented in our city, in traditional culture, mythology and fantasy literature, along with some of today’s most relevant phenomena among young people; water, science and communication, complemented through fiction and non-fiction by some of the major issues that concern us; horror, a forgotten subject in our literature until recently and increasingly useful for addressing the anxieties we experience as individuals and as a society; and technology of course, through a Network Night celebrating the shared reading culture so typical of our times.

And all of this comes with new features worth highlighting: new workshops and experiential activities, theatre performances, literary laboratories and tours, talks and round tables on illustration, comics and videogames, tributes ranging from the 50th anniversary of De Pedrolo’s Typescript of the Second Origin... to the centenaries of Kafka and Jordi Sarsanedas, small-format conventions devoted to great authors such as Shirley Jackson, Ursula K. Le Guin and more. There is a ceremony, a book, a name and a discovery for everybody at the 42, which is why we encourage you to explore these by perusing the programme or letting yourself be surprised in person. After all, one of the most appealing things about the festival is the immersion in an open and unprejudiced collective, made up of both experts and newcomers, of fans of the formula and risk explorers, of fandom and academia alike.

You will find some big names at the Festival 42 this November: Ted Chiang, Mónica Ojeda, Albert Sánchez Piñol, Lisa Tuttle, José Ovejero, Manuel Vilas, Elisenda Solsona, Edgar Cantero, Lucia Pietrelli, César Mallorquí... But, we can assure you, what you'll find above all are discoveries —new favourite books, new worlds, and new ways to expand reality. Yours too, if you put your trust in us again. We really hope so.

They say there are other worlds, and they are all here at the 42. The ones you share with us too.

See you there.

Xavier Marcé, councillor for Culture and Creative Industries