Barcelona Metropolis

David Walliams’ parents granted him one wish: a small black-and-white television in his room. As a child, he happily spent hours devouring British wrestling. However, surprisingly, reading was a challenge for him. As an adult, David Walliams acknowledges his parents’ mistake and advises anyone not to make the same one. Fortunately, one day he stumbled upon a book that saved his life: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. From then on, everything changed.

“Dennis was different”. This opening sentence marks the beginning of the first book by British children’s and young adult literature author David Walliams (1971), who was the guest of honour at the last Sant Jordi in Barcelona. Published by Montena, like all his books in Catalan, The Boy in the Dress was the first in a series that has sold 56 million copies and been translated into over fifty languages. Being born into English as a first language, with a robust publishing industry that champions its own children’s and young adult authors worldwide, decisively and unapologetically, and yet only translates a fraction of authors into English, helps enormously. However, his sales figures cannot be solely attributed to this. Freshness, humour, quality, tenderness and the desire to bring joy to children and young adults through storytelling are fundamental elements throughout his books.

Walliams, in the address he delivered on 22 April at the Born Centre de Cultura i Memòria, articulated what many Catalan authors of children’s and young adult literature think: that our work carries significant responsibility. He remarked, “If our books fail to capture children’s imaginations, they will stop reading, books will end up disappearing and everyone will be glued to screens”. And that’s precisely the case. That’s why it was so crucial that, finally, after so many years, an author of children’s and young adult literature was chosen as the speaker. As I’ve often written, literature aimed at children and young people (or, as Pep Albanell put it, literature that children and young people can also read) is literature writ large.

In Catalonia and Spain, there’s some uncertainty about this, but in David Walliams’ England, it’s clear. There, they haven’t wasted time debating whether the author’s fame stems solely from his acting role in the series Little Britain or as a comedian in other TV shows. Nor have they dismissed him for writing for children and young people. In England, there is great pride in the fact that the author has sold seventeen million copies of a single title, Gangsta Granny, a delightful children’s book in which Ben, who decides to become a plumber against his parents’ wishes for him to become a dancer, discovers that his grandmother might be a jewel thief – or perhaps not. Granny, determined to win Ben’s affection and be seen as more than just a boring grandmother, hatches a plan to change his perception of her.

David Walliams has often been likened to Roald Dahl, and it’s not hard to see why. Firstly, because of Walliams’ admiration for the author who made him a (late) reader through his books. What’s more, his first book, The Boy in the Dress, was illustrated by Quentin Blake, Dahl’s longtime illustrator. Tony Ross was then chosen to bring Walliams’ stories to life in pictures, and together they make a superb team.

Yet, there is also within him a desire, akin to Dahl’s, to use humour and what is politically incorrect. To clearly portray both good characters and detestable ones (we really dislike Ben’s parents…). To aim to entertain the reader without imposing a moral lesson. To want to amuse, engage and draw the reader to the next page, and the next, and the next. And to do so with utmost respect for their intelligence. As the celebrated and dearly missed Lolo Rico, creator of the television programme La bola de cristal [The Crystal Ball] and writer of children’s books, used to say, “children aren’t stupid”. I was fortunate enough to interview her, and this phrase resonated so deeply with me that ever since, I’ve divided authors of children’s and young adult literature into those who think like Lolo Rico and those who approach children with paternalism, moralism and every possible -ism.