The Cervantes Institute will hold numerous cultural and academic activities next week in Frankfurt (Germany) as part of the 2022 Book Fairin which Spain is the Guest of Honor. Queen Letizia will meet with German Hispanists and Spanish teachers at Cervantes in the city, which will also host events with Irene Lozano and Dieter Ingenschay, among others. At the fair, the director of the Institute, Luis García Montero, will participate in three colloquia: one on the economic power of the Spanish language, with Vice President Nadia Calviño and Minister Miquel Iceta, and two literary meetings with the writers Antonio. Muñoz Molina, Carlos Marzal and Raquel Lanseros.
Summary of the Institute’s activities
After the official opening of the Fair (Tuesday 18 October) by the King and Queen of Spain and the German authorities, the following day (Wednesday 19 October) Doña Letizia will attend the Cervantes Institute in Frankfurt, where she will hold a meeting with the German Hispanists.
The event dedicated to researchers of Spanish culture will begin with a welcome speech by the director of the institution, Luis García Montero.. This will be followed by a round table discussion entitled “Homage German Hispanicism”, moderated by the veteran Dieter Ingenschay (1948), Professor Emeritus of Hispanic Literature at the Humboldt University of Berlin. Hispanics Danae Gallo Gonzalez, Marco Garcia Garcia, Lena Hein, Marilia Dea Johnk and Victoria del Valle will participate.
The same Wednesday, Luis García Montero will hold a colloquium with the writer Antonio Muñoz Molina entitled “Beyond the Limits of Imagination”which will be presented by Elvira Marco.
Thursday the 20th, “Spanish and the Economic Power of Language in the Digital Age” will be analyzed in a round table by the Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta, and the director of the Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero.
The meeting will be closed by the first vice president of the Government and the Minister of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation. Nadia Calvino. The moderator will be Cristina Gallach, journalist and special commissioner for the Alliance for the New Linguistic Economy of the Spanish Government.
The academic activity will return on Thursday at the premises of Cervantes, where the round table will be held “The Role of Literature in the Spanish Language Classroom”, with Carmen Pastor, Academic Director of the Cervantes Institute. The debate is organized in cooperation with the German Association of Spanish Teachers (DSV).
Also at Cervantes on the 20th, there will be a talk with three Spanish female illustrators whose works are on display in the “Ilustrad/AS” exhibition. A look at the creation of women in avant-garde illustration, which is open to the public until January 23. Sonia Pulido, Maria Hesse and Núria Tamarit will be in dialogue with the curator, Jakob Hoffmann.
The artistic activity also includes the exhibition “Photographic notes from the past. José Ortiz Echagüe (1986-1980)”, which brings together 100 images of the renowned Spanish photographer. It opens on Sunday 16 January and can be visited until 22 January at the Openvillen Rüsselsheim centre.
The seminar will be hosted by the Cervantes Center “German Seminar of Hispanism” on Thursday and Friday, where many professors, writers and translators will participate. It will include lectures on topics such as “Languages, Societies and Cultures in Latin America”, “Anthology of Spanish and Latin American Poetry” and Ingenschay’s lecture “Another History of Spanish Literature”.
On Friday October 21, the director of the Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero, will be in dialogue at the Fair with two other well-known poets: Carlos Marzal and Raquel Lanseros, who will be moderators. The round table is right “Poetry in the Time of Intemperance”.
Independent Spanish cinema created between 2015 and 2020 has a place with the cycle “Overwhelming Reality”a title that is a version of the Fair’s official slogan, “Creativity Overflowing”. Organized by the Cervantes Institute, A/CE and the German Film Archive (DFF), it offers more than a dozen Spanish films that can be seen until March 30. Venue: Film Museum Frankfurt (Filmmuseum).
Literature and football
On Saturday the 22nd, the leaders of the Institute and Casa Árabe, Luis García Montero and Irene Lozano, will hold a round table on ‘Literature and Football’ at Cervantes. after signing a cooperation agreement between the two organizations.
This event is an appetizer for another meeting, this time sports. In the afternoon, a football match will be played between the “Los Cervantinos” team made up of Spanish writers and journalists and the German team made up of authors from Germany.
The Spanish team includes Nuria Labari, Enrique Ballester, Álex Grijelmo, Gabi Martínez, Pablo García Casado, Emilio Sánchez Mediavilla and Álex Prada, among others.
As is traditional in every edition of the Fair, the Kulturstiftung of the German Football Association (DFB) organizes a clash between the representatives of the guest country of honor (in this case, Spain) and the national team, in an initiative that was presented last Tuesday at the headquarters of Cervantes in Madrid.
All events taking place at Cervantes in Frankfurt will be broadcast on the Cervantes Institute’s Directo 1 and YouTube channels. Those taking place at the Fair will be available once the event is over.
Submitted by Jose Antonio Sierra, Hispanic Advisor.
