Verónica Mendoza

She is the director of the Carlos Fuentes Library at the University of Guadalajara, with over 20 years of experience in the publishing industry. During this time, she was part of the FIL Guadalajara as the director of exhibitors and professionals. In this role, she significantly contributed to the growth of the fair, especially in the international arena, and led the consolidation of various programs for the professional development of the sector.

In 2015, she founded Base Tres, a company dedicated to developing book-related projects, from which she has contributed to various areas of the sector. Her work includes the creation of the International University Book Fair of UNAM (FILUNI), managing the business center of the International Book Fair of Panama, and advising foreign publishing companies on entering the Latin American market. She has also participated in coordinating several publications and collaborating on growth programs for the University of Guadalajara Publishing House and the Association of University Publishers of Latin America.

Since 2020, she has been involved in different initiatives to enhance the visibility and role of bookstores, such as the creation of the Latin American Network of Independent Bookstores.

Other activities involving the participant:

Innovation and success: How digital books impact bookstore sales

Armando Montes de Santiago

For the past 18 years, she has worked on the organizing committee of the FIL, where she was responsible for international sales for many years. She is currently in charge of the General Coordination of Exhibitors and Professionals, as well as other important projects for the FIL, such as the Comic + Graphic Novel Hall and Books to Taste.

Other activities involving the participant:

Opening Ceremony
Opening Ceremony
Opening Ceremony
Presentation of: Foráneo
Presentation of the Pura Pinche Fortaleza Graphic Novel Award

María José Gálvez

Invitado de Honor

(Valencia, 1975) She is currently the general director of Books, Comics, and Reading at the Ministry of Culture and Sport of the Government of Spain, where she has the following duties: develop and implement plans, programs, and actions to promote and disseminate literary creation and translation, with specific measures for the comic medium; enhance the development of the publishing industry and the preservation of bibliodiversity and linguistic plurality; and foster the promotion of reading in all areas, particularly through library coordination, contributing to the balanced and innovative development of libraries in their public role.

Among other roles, she is a member of the boards of the National Library of Spain, the Max Aub Foundation, the Francisco Brines Foundation, and the María Zambrano Foundation. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Cervantes Institute.

She has a PhD in Law from the Universidad de Valencia (with predoctoral research stays at Harvard University, the University of Pisa, and the Free University of Brussels), and she is an expert in Constitutional Law, having completed a specialization course at the Center for Political and Constitutional Studies in Madrid. She has been an associate professor of Constitutional Law at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and a tutor-professor at Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC).

She was the editorial director of Tirant lo Blanch Publishing for several years, and also coordinated the editorial production of the Tirant group in various Spanish-speaking countries.

In the institutional field, she served as deputy director of the Office of the President of the Congress of Deputies and as an advisor in various offices of the First Vice Presidency of the Government.

Other activities involving the participant:

Writing goodbye
Reading is a right!
One hundred years of modern publishing in Galicia

Antonio Ramírez

Invitado de Honor

Born in Medellín, Colombia, in 1959, he began his university studies in his hometown, first in Engineering and later in Economics and Finance. He continued his studies at the Faculty of Economic Sciences at UNAM in Mexico City. In this city, he started working as a bookseller at El Juglar bookstore in 1980 and later at Librerías Gandhi. In 1985, he moved to Barcelona, where he has lived since then. He studied Anthropology and History at the University of Barcelona.

Between 1987 and 1994, he worked at Librería Laie, serving as its director from 1991 to 1994. In 1991, he took professional development courses at ASFODELP in Paris. In 1995, he co-founded La Central with Marta Ramoneda, a company he has directed ever since. In 2004, he participated in the founding of Editorial Arcadia, which publishes both Catalan and Spanish, and served on its editorial board until 2018. Between 2013 and 2019, he was part of the editorial board of the magazine La Maleta de Portbou.

From 1998 to 2005 and from 2018 to 2022, he was a board member of the Gremi de Llibreters. From 2017 to 2022, he served as vice president of the Consell de Cultura de Barcelona, an advisory body of the Barcelona City Council. Since 1998, he has been a lecturer in the Master’s in Publishing program at UPF BSM and is a regular professor at the Escola de Llibreria of the University of Barcelona. He has also been a visiting professor at the Scuola per Librai Umberto e Elisabeta Mauri in Venice, Italy, and has served as a juror for the Premis Ciutat de Barcelona and the Grand Prix Livres Hebdo des Librairies (2019) in France.

César Aguilar

He holds a degree in Accounting from the Universidad Intercontinental and a master's degree in Management from the Universidad del Valle de México. He served as General Manager of the Fondo de Cultura Económica in Guatemala and Bogotá, and as Project Manager for the Arnaldo Orfila Reynal bookstore in Buenos Aires. With over 30 years of experience in the public and private publishing sectors across Mexico City, Monterrey, Guatemala, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, and Panama, he has played a significant role in various projects.

Notably, he coordinated the establishment of the Centro Cultural Gabriel García Márquez in Bogotá and was awarded the Order of Tlatelolco by the Mexican Foreign Ministry for his cultural management abroad. He was a board member of the Gremial de Editores de Guatemala from 2004 to 2007 and of the Cámara Colombiana del Libro from 2007 to 2011. From September 2012 to 2019, he was the Deputy Director of Linkage at the General Directorate of Publications and Editorial Promotion at UNAM. He is currently the General Manager of the Panamanian bookstore chain El Hombre de la Mancha. From 2017 to 2020, he taught courses in Accounting, Management, Marketing, and International Relations at the Universidad Intercontinental in Mexico City.

Natalia Miranda

She is a bookseller and editor with over 20 years of solid experience in the book world. She graduated in Literature and as an Editor from the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the University of Buenos Aires. Throughout her career, she has held key roles including Sales Coordinator at the Fondo de Cultura Económica in Argentina, Manager of Librería Universitaria Argentina, and Bookstore Coordinator at FCE Colombia. She has also represented several Argentine publishers in sales.

She is the founder of Libros del Arrabal, a small but influential bookstore located in the Liniers neighborhood of Buenos Aires. An active member of the Board of Directors of the Cámara Argentina de Librerías Independientes (CALI), she also collaborates with the Red Latinoamericana de Librerías Independientes (RELLI), where she works with colleagues to strengthen the role of bookstores in the community and promote a love for books.

Mónica Dinerstein

A prominent figure in the Argentine publishing world, she is currently leading Librería Tiempos Modernos and serving as president of the newly established Cámara Argentina de Librerías Independientes (CALI) since December 2023. Her career began at the age of 18 at Editorial Galerna, where she gained diverse experience and learned about editorial operations and bookstore management.

In the 1980s, she moved to Mexico to manage the prestigious Editorial Nueva Imagen, working alongside notable figures such as Carlos Ulanovsky. During her tenure, she also coordinated Mexico's stand at the Buenos Aires Book Fair, enhancing her international experience. Since 1990, she has successfully run her own bookstore, dedicated to promoting literature and culture in Buenos Aires.

Simultaneously, she has played key roles in the Cámara del Libro and CAPLA, where she directed the Revista CAPLA for a decade. Her commitment to the bookselling sector and advocacy for the interests of independent bookstores led her to become one of the founders of CALI, an initiative that achieved legal status in April 2024. With a strong background in editorial management and cultural promotion through her bookstore, she remains an influential voice in the Argentine literary community. Her leadership in CALI is expected to strengthen the role of independent bookstores in disseminating knowledge and culture in Argentina.

Miguel Iglesias

Invitado de Honor

Miguel Iglesias is a computer scientist and owner of the bookstore "Letras a la Taza," located in Navarra, which he opened in 2014. With a strong commitment to promoting reading, he has dedicated his career to fostering a love for books in his community and beyond. His dedication to the sector has led him to serve as president of the Confederación Española de Gremios y Asociaciones de Libreros (CEGAL), where he works to support and strengthen the role of bookstores in society.

He is an active member of the groups Kirico, Zona Cómic, and Todos tus libros, all of which focus on promoting reading among children and youth. Through these initiatives, he has developed and implemented various programs and activities aimed at instilling the reading habit in younger generations, ensuring that they discover the benefits of reading.

Currently, Miguel continues to work on making "Letras a la Taza" a gathering place for book lovers in Navarra and remains at the forefront of national efforts to promote reading across all age groups.

Other activities involving the participant:

Current status of children's and young adult literature in Spain

Edgar Blanco

Editor, bookseller, and cultural promoter. Co-founder of Animal Extinto, an independent publishing project. In 2018, he created Colectivo Huracán, a group of independent publishers focused on the distribution and circulation of editorial content and products. In 2020, he founded El Cuarto Plegable, a bookstore specializing in independent publishers with a physical location in Bogotá. He has been involved in the programming of the Boyacá International Culture Festival (FIC) since 2021, and he is the organizer of the "Doble por aquí" publication fair, which has been held four times. He also conducts workshops for district schools of booksellers and editing (IDARTES), programs the Boyacá International Book Fair (FILBOY) based in Tunja, and has been a board member of the Colombian Association of Independent Booksellers (ACLI) since 2024.

Carlos Armenta

Carlos Armenta (Guadalajara, 1989) is an editor and bookseller at Impronta Casa Editora. He currently serves as the president of the Committee of Independent Publishers of CANIEM.

Other activities involving the participant:

Panel 1: The Cost of Knowledge

Brenda Navarro

She was part of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in 2023. Her debut novel, Casas vacías (2018), won the Premio Tigre Juan and the Pen Translation Award in the United Kingdom. Her second novel, Ceniza en la boca (2022), received the Premio Cálamo, the Premio de la Asociación de Librerías de Madrid, the Premio Todos tus Libros, and the Premio San Clemente as the best book of 2022, in addition to being a finalist at the Bienal Vargas Llosa 2022.

She has worked as an editor and screenwriter and teaches creative writing workshops both nationally and internationally, including at the City University of New York (CUNY), New York University (NYU), the University of Iowa (UI), and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She has been invited to give lectures at Harvard, Brown, Wesleyan, Iowa, and New York universities. Additionally, she has contributed to media outlets such as El País, Pikara Magazine, La Marea, El Salto, Milenio, Tierra Adentro, among others.

In 2021, she served as the General Coordinator for the diploma course Encuentros y Desencuentros de la lengua española y de las literaturas hispánicas, organized by the Cátedra Extraordinaria Carlos Fuentes de Literatura Hispanoamericana and the Centro de Estudios Mexicanos en España (CEM-España). This course brought together over two dozen Ibero-American speakers to discuss Spanish-language literature. She also coordinated the project “No hay lugar en este país” (2021) with the Centro de Análisis e Investigación Fundar México, which included a literary workshop that resulted in the publication of a book in 2022.

Other activities involving the participant:

One-way trip from nowhere
A one-way ticket

Pau Luque

Invitado de Honor

Born in Barcelona in 1982, he has lived in Mexico City since 2014. He trained as a legal philosopher at the University of Genoa (Italy) and as a humanist at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona (Spain). In 2020, he published Las cosas como son y otras fantasías (Anagrama Argumentos), a literary essay offering a way out of the deadlock that has constrained the relationship between art and morality in the 21st century. He argues that neither superficial moralism, which demands art to be correct, nor the moral indifference promoted by a misunderstood liberalism captures the essence of ethics or its relation to artistic impulse. Luque suggests that imperfect moral virtues, literary or narrative imagination, and worldly vicissitudes are the ethical sources from which any work with something human to say draws.

In collaboration with Natalia Carrillo, he published Hipocondría moral (Nuevos cuadernos Anagrama) in 2022, where they identify a strange but omnipresent contemporary phenomenon: we feel guilt when we are guilty, but especially when we are not. In this essay, they critique the contemporary choice (or imposition) of guilt as the primary emotion structuring our relationship with the world's calamities. They propose that it would be much more fruitful politically, morally, and even philosophically to replace guilt with responsibility.

With Ñu (Anagrama Narrativas hispánicas), published in 2024, Luque gives a new twist to genre hybridization, inventing the essay with characters. Real and fictional creatures wander and converse in Ñu about their lives, their ideas, love and friendship, and the unsettling possibility that what we call "solution" might be nothing more than an inevitable fantasy.

Other activities involving the participant:

On literature in other formats. A crossroads. Ethics and literature Punzadas Sonoras (Podcast. Live episode)

Camilo Hoyos Gómez

Director of Paredro, Center for the Promotion of Reading, Writing, and Orality, host and director of Paredro Podcast, the podcast about books, authors, and other figures in the literary world. He holds a PhD in Humanities from Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, 2010, Spain) and a degree in Literature from Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia). He has taught at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Universidad de los Andes, Universidad Javeriana, and Instituto Caro y Cuervo in Bogotá, among others. He is a founding member of the Fundación Gratitud. He served as Academic Deputy Director of Instituto Caro y Cuervo from 2014 to 2016, an advanced studies center affiliated with the Ministry of Culture of Colombia.

Other activities involving the participant:

Workshop 2: Paredro Podcast and the construction of reading communities

Paca Flores

Invitado de Honor

She holds a degree in Journalism. In 2006, she, along with Julián Rodríguez, launched the independent publishing house Periférica, which has over three hundred titles in its catalog and has been operating for 18 years.

Other activities involving the participant:

Panel 4: Books about Books and Bookstores: Fashion? Business? Romanticism for Book Lovers? Poetic Justice?

Lola Larumbe

Invitado de Honor

A bookseller with a background in biological sciences, she began her journey in the world of books in 1980 at the Rafael Alberti bookstore in Madrid, where she is currently responsible and director. In 2005, she was awarded the V Premio Librero Cultural by the Ministry of Culture and the Confederación Española de Gremios y Asociaciones de Libreros (CEGAL) for her project Encuentros en Alberti. This initiative has transformed the Rafael Alberti bookstore into one of Madrid’s cultural landmarks, hosting major figures in Spanish and Latin American literature as well as emerging writers and creators over the years.

She views the bookstore as a vital space in the city and neighborhood, a cultural echo chamber and meeting place, and advocates for the role of the bookseller in fostering enthusiasm for books and reading.

She has published Pasión de papel. Cuentos sobre el mundo del libro (2007), the preface to Mujeres y libros by Stefan Bollmann (2015), “Los lectores que conozco” in Elogio del libro (2016), and ¡A las librerías! (2016).

She collaborates with the Master's program in Publishing at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, the Complutense Summer School at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and the Cultural Project Management course at La Fábrica. In 2022, she served as the literary director for the Festival Eñe in Madrid.

She has received the Premio Bibliodiversidad from the Asociación de Editores de Madrid, the Boixareu Ginesta Award for Bookseller of the Year 2019 from the Federación de Gremios de Editores de España, and the AMEIS de Plata 2023 from the Asociación de Escritoras e Ilustradoras.

Other activities involving the participant:

Panel 6: Of Ants and Titans: Selling Books in Our Language(s): Nuances and Perspectives. Publishers

Alejandro Katz

He holds a degree in Language and Literature from UNAM and completed postgraduate studies in Administration at the Di Tella University in Buenos Aires. For nearly twenty years, he directed the Argentine branch of the Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE) and served as an essay editor for the organization. In 2006, he founded Katz Editores, a publishing house specializing in humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, with offices in Buenos Aires and Madrid. A translator and essayist, he regularly publishes articles in major media outlets across Argentina, Latin America, and Spain. In 2020, he won the first prize in the essay competition organized by the National Academy of Political Sciences of Argentina. He is also a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters of the French Republic.

Other activities involving the participant:

Panel 6: Of Ants and Titans: Selling Books in Our Language(s): Nuances and Perspectives. Publishers

María Mur Dean

Invitado de Honor

She has been working at the independent publishing and cultural space consonni since 1999. Consonni, which has been producing and editing critical culture since 1996, is written in lowercase and is a mutant, androgynous, and polycephalous entity, with feminism and listening as its "superpowers." In addition, Mur uses written, spoken, or even silenced words in various formats, publishing in different media, and contributing to debates on cultural policies, feminism, and the potential of culture to create a public sphere.
www.consonni.org

Dores Tembrás

Invitado de Honor

(Bergondiño, La Coruña, 1979) holds a degree in Spanish Philology, completed in 2001, and specializes in Hispanic American literature. In 2008, after years of research and various stays in Sweden, Madrid, and Buenos Aires, she defended her doctoral thesis: La obra poética de Alejandra Pizarnik. Arquitectura de un desencuentro (The Poetic Work of Alejandra Pizarnik. Architecture of a Disencounter).

In 2009, she published her first poetry collection, O pouso do fume (The Landing of Smoke). Since then, her poetic works have included Esquiagrafías, Diapositivas a clareo, Silabario, and Opium. In 2016, she published the pamphlet Auga a través (Water Through), and in 2023, the poetry collection Enxertos (Grafts). Her first children’s poetry book, O peizoque Roque, was released in 2012.

In 2013, she won the Premio de Poesía Concello de Carral with her work Cronoloxía da urxencia (Chronology of Urgency). Her texts have been translated into various languages (Basque, Catalan, Spanish, English, German, Ukrainian, Croatian, Bulgarian, and Estonian) and included in magazines, collective works, and international anthologies.

Her poetic work is characterized by brevity and precision. Ancestry, memory, childhood, and the connection to the rural environment shape a space where the poetic self delves into language, giving silence a place of preference.

In 2014, she co-founded the cultural project Apiario with fellow writer Antía Otero. Apiario focuses on two main areas: a school dedicated to training, offering creative and poetic writing courses, and another area dedicated to publishing. It is an independent project that emphasizes the importance of the book as an object. Its catalog, focused on poetry, aims to give each original work individual identity, with the design of each book tailored to its specific needs. Over the past decade, Apiario has received recognition and awards highlighting the excellence of its editorial work.
www.dorestembras.com
www.apiario.eu

Munts Brunet Navarro

Invitado de Honor

(Sabadell, 1987), a feminist and graduate in Fine Arts, is captivated by the capacity of everyday and collective practices to impact production methods as well as the direction of projects and editions. She has been a driving force behind multiple neighborhood collaborative projects, which operate from a self-managed model focused on sovereignty and feminism. Since 2010, she has been part of the editorial and cultural space consonni, which has been producing and editing critical culture since 1996. Consonni is written in lowercase and is a mutant, androgynous, polycephalous entity, with feminism and listening as its superpowers.
www.consonni.org

Antía Otero

Invitado de Honor

(A Estrada, 1982) holds a degree in Art History from the University of Santiago de Compostela and has received academic training in the fields of performing arts and cinema. She works between the worlds of writing and publishing.

Since 2014, she has co-directed the cultural project, writing school, and independent publishing house Apiario, alongside poet Dores Tembrás. Over the years, Apiario has been recognized by readers and critics as one of the leading Galician publishers, noted for both the artisanal care in the creation processes and the excellence in editing. The originality of the volumes in their catalog has earned them multiple accolades.

As a poet, she has published individual poetry collections including O Son da Xordeira (2003, Espiral Maior), Retrovisor (2010, Edicións Xerais; finalist for the Premios AELG), and O cuarto das abellas (2016, Edicións Xerais; Award for Best Book of Poetry at the II Gala do Libro Galego). Her most recent collection, Barroco (2022, Apiario), was awarded twice at the Premios Follas Novas do Libro Galego in the categories of Book of Poetry and Edition. In 2017, she published O branco non pinta! (Apiario), her first foray into children’s literature, which was selected by the Spanish Organization for Children’s and Young Adult Books (OEPLI) for its catalog that same year.

Her poetic work seeks the gaps of what cannot be seen at first glance, the light and its frames, the possibilities of the ephemeral and memory, the challenging dialogue between image and word, the tension of the domestic, and the margins of history.

Her work can be found in various magazines (Dorna, Olga, Grotta, Ínsula), collective works, and anthologies.

Her texts have been set to music by Galician musical bands such as Chicharrón, Fanny & Alexander, Xosé Manuel Budiño, and Guadi Galego.

Luis González Martín

Invitado de Honor

He is the General Director of the Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez (FGSR), a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting reading and innovating in the book industry. He holds a degree in Law and a master's degree in Labor and Tax Consulting from the Autonomous University of Madrid. In 1992, he joined the Senior Corps of State Administrators, and since then has held various senior positions within the Spanish Administration. In his most recent role at the Ministry of Culture, he launched the Reading Promotion Plan 2001-2004. During these stages, he also served on the Steering Committee of the international nuclear fusion project (JET) and on the Board of Directors of Enresa, and was awarded the Distinguished Cross of Saint Raymond of Peñafort. Since joining FGSR in 2004, he has launched projects such as Readmagine, Renodo, Lecturalab, Canal Lector, Lectylab, and PARIX, and has led or participated in European projects like Tisp, Aldus Up, Sidt, Creative Shift, ThinkPub, and 1234redes. He is the 3rd Vice President of the Spanish Association of Foundations and a member of the Madrid City Council’s Council of Culture, appointed by unanimous decision of all political groups.

Other activities involving the participant:

PARIX. Training for book professionals to achieve their most ambitious goals

Antonio Ramos Revillas

Director of the University Press of the Autonomous University of Nuevo León (UANL) since 2016. He holds a degree in Spanish Literature from UANL, which awarded him the Arts Prize in 2015 for his literary career. He was part of the Mexico 20 selection, organized by the British Council, Conaculta, and the Hay Festival, recognizing him as one of the 20 most important writers under 40 in the country. His most recent novel is Playa Bagdad. He is a member of the National System of Creators of Art.

Other activities involving the participant:

Literature with eggs and machaca
Panel 2: The Role of Publishers and Their Commitment to Knowledge Dissemination

Alejandra Soriano

Professional in literary studies and social communication with experience in public policy design and the production and execution of communication and management projects in the cultural sector. Her research interests focus on reading policies and libraries, studies of the reception of written culture, and gender studies related to literature. She has taught at university institutions such as Jorge Tadeo Lozano University, ICESI University, and Universidad del Rosario. She is currently the literature manager at the District Institute of Arts (IDARTES).

Claudia Bautista

She holds a degree in International Relations from UNAM, a master's in Government and Public Affairs from FLACSO, Mexico City, and is a doctoral candidate in Regional History at Universidad Veracruzana. At the beginning of her professional career, she ventured into international trade and later into academic research on organic agriculture and its dynamics. She participated in the founding and leadership of several community-based productive projects related to small-scale farming and the environment.

In 2010, she moved to Xalapa and became a co-founder of Hyperion Librería, one of the most recognized independent bookstores in the state of Veracruz. In 2018, she established the Network of Independent Bookstores, the first Mexican initiative focused on raising the profile of these businesses, managing initiatives for their professionalization, and ensuring their influence on public policies that guarantee their well-being.

In 2020, she completed a diploma in Bookstore Management and Creation at UNED and was a scholarship recipient of the international program for booksellers organized by the Frankfurt Book Fair. In the same year, she participated in the creation of the Latin American Network of Independent Bookstores (RELLI). In 2022, she took part in the CONACYT project “Towards an Observatory of Reading in the State of Mexico” with researchers from the Colegio Mexiquense.

Paca Flores

Invitado de Honor

She holds a degree in Journalism. In 2006, she, along with Julián Rodríguez, launched the independent publishing house Periférica, which has over three hundred titles in its catalog and has been operating for 18 years.

Other activities involving the participant:

Mosaic 1: Book and publishing experiences

Jacobo Zanella

He is one of the editors at Gris Tormenta, a publishing house that reflects on the intersection of writing, reading, and editing. He writes for cultural media about books and occasionally translates essays.

Germán Touza

Germán Touza has been working in the book world for 20 years. He has worked in bookstores, publishing houses, and distributors focused on independent publishing. He is currently part of Ediciones Ampersand, a Buenos Aires-based project founded in 2012, aimed at producing elegantly designed books about books, following thorough editing, proofreading, and design processes. He is also a playwright, screenwriter, and theater director, roles he has been performing for over 10 years.

Manuel Ortuño

Editor. Director of Trama Editorial. Director of the magazine “TEXTURAS. On Editing and Books, Their Facts, and Some Ideas.” Currently, he is the president of the Association of Cultural Magazines (ARCE).

Nicolás Leyton

He has worked as a contributor to written media and as a university professor for 10 years. Since 2010, he has been a partner and founder of La Pollera Ediciones, where he manages and directs projects as well as edits the books published by the editorial house. At the end of 2022, he joined Big Sur, a book distributor based in Chile and Argentina, as the head of New Business. He also participates in the La Furia del Libro team as the person responsible for the internationalization of the fair.

Víctor Malumián

Bachelor's degree in Communication Sciences (UBA). Along with Hernán López Winne, he founded Ediciones Godot in 2008. In 2012, they created the Feria de Editores, which, in its latest edition, welcomed over 330 publishers from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Uruguay, and Venezuela. In 2016, he co-authored the book "Independientes ¿de qué?" published by Fondo de Cultura Económica in Mexico. In 2017, he co-founded Carbono, a distributor providing logistical solutions to Ediciones Godot, Gourmet Musical, Sigilo, Barrett, Chai, and El Gato y la Caja. In 2023, they launched "Metonimia libros," a small bookstore in the northern area of Buenos Aires. In 2024, he published "El destino de una caja" with the editorial Gris Tormenta, which explores the vicissitudes of book distribution and cooperation among colleagues.

Other activities involving the participant:

Workshop 4: Metrics, Passion, and Truth

Isabella Varela

Bookseller, cultural manager, and editor with over ten years of experience in the publishing sector. She graduated in Social Communication with an emphasis on editorial and multimedia production from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. She is currently the curator, head bookseller, and cultural manager at La Verbena, a bookstore and cultural center in northern Bogotá, recognized by the BibloRed Directorate of Reading and Libraries as an innovative practice in the mediation and promotion of reading, writing, and oral culture in the city. She has worked as a bookseller at Libélula Libros (Armenia) and FCE (Bogotá). Her mission as a bookseller is to create inclusive, gentle, and welcoming spaces to connect readers of all ages with books as a means of dialogue and to contribute to strengthening the community.

Genoveva Muñoz

Genoveva Muñoz Castillo (Mexico City, 1981) is one of the editors at La Cifra, a Mexican independent publishing house that publishes graphic novels, comics, and illustrated albums, as well as novels, short stories, and essays. A crucial part of her work has been establishing collaborative relationships with other publishers to find new ways to address distribution and exhibition challenges faced by independent publishers.

Other activities involving the participant:

Panel 2: The Importance of Exceptions and Limitations

Rodrigo Bastidas

Es editor, investigador independiente y docente universitario. Como editor general de Ediciones Vestigio desde 2018 ha editado más de 40 libros de ciencia ficción, literatura extraña y bizarro. Publicó las antologías Relojes que no marcan la misma hora (2017), El tercer mundo después del sol (2021), y Futuras (2023), entre otras. Escribió Cuerpos luminares y de otras dimensiones, ganador del Premio Julio González Gómez (2023) como libro de ensayo colombiano más importante del 2022. Relatos suyos han sido publicados en antologías como Brecha II (2024) y Contaminación futura 10 (2024). Su primera novela Lo incandescente (2025) fue ganadora de la convocatoria a obra inédita 2024 del Ministerio de las Culturas y la Biblioteca Nacional.

Rodnei Casares

Editor and bookseller Co-founder of the publishing house Libros del Fuego, founder of Ítaca Librería-Bar, creator of the Medellín Bookstore Map and the Bookstore Tour in Colombia, workshop leader at the Idartes Bookstore School, attendee of the Frankfurt, Guadalajara, Buenos Aires, and Bogotá International Book Fairs, promoter of reading and culture in Medellín, and passionate about bookstores.

Patty Salinas

Patricia Salinas (Oaxaca de Juárez, 1988) is an editor and writer. She studied Hispanic Languages and Literatures at UNAM. She worked at Surplus Ediciones and has been an editor at Almadía since 2019. She was a fellow of the FONCA Young Creators Program in Creative Essay during the 2019-2020 period, and is currently a fellow for the 2023-2024 period. She is the founder of the publishing house Fruta Bomba.

Afri Aspeleiter

She studied Literature at the National University of Mar del Plata and Publishing at the University of Buenos Aires. Since December 2017, she has been coordinating Concreto Editorial, a project dedicated to the poetry and narrative of Latin American female authors, with a catalog that aims to weave a map of the continent and a common understanding among its texts. Additionally, she works in the User Experience (UX) department at one of the region's largest multinational companies.

Juan Casamayor

Invitado de Honor

(Madrid, 1968) founded the independent publishing house Páginas de Espuma in 1999, which has become a reference in the genre of short stories in Spanish. Its catalog includes major contemporary short story writers as well as classics of world literature. The imprint also features a significant collection of essays, including literary criticism, memoirs, diaries, travel books, and correspondence.

In 2017, Páginas de Espuma received the Editorial Merit Award from the Guadalajara International Book Fair (Mexico). In 2019, it was honored with the Best Cultural Editorial Work Award from the Ministry of Culture of Spain, and in 2023, it won the Editorial Merit Award from the UANLeer International Fair of Monterrey, organized by the Universidad de Nuevo León (Mexico). He teaches classes in various master's programs and courses in editing and creative writing.

Other activities involving the participant:

"Short forms"

Camilo Hoyos Gómez

Director of Paredro, Center for the Promotion of Reading, Writing, and Orality, host and director of Paredro Podcast, the podcast about books, authors, and other figures in the literary world. He holds a PhD in Humanities from Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, 2010, Spain) and a degree in Literature from Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia). He has taught at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Universidad de los Andes, Universidad Javeriana, and Instituto Caro y Cuervo in Bogotá, among others. He is a founding member of the Fundación Gratitud. He served as Academic Deputy Director of Instituto Caro y Cuervo from 2014 to 2016, an advanced studies center affiliated with the Ministry of Culture of Colombia.

Other activities involving the participant:

Inaugural Talk: The Recovery of the Lost Home… That Perhaps We Don’t Want to Recover

Víctor Malumián

Bachelor's degree in Communication Sciences (UBA). Along with Hernán López Winne, he founded Ediciones Godot in 2008. In 2012, they created the Feria de Editores, which, in its latest edition, welcomed over 330 publishers from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Uruguay, and Venezuela. In 2016, he co-authored the book "Independientes ¿de qué?" published by Fondo de Cultura Económica in Mexico. In 2017, he co-founded Carbono, a distributor providing logistical solutions to Ediciones Godot, Gourmet Musical, Sigilo, Barrett, Chai, and El Gato y la Caja. In 2023, they launched "Metonimia libros," a small bookstore in the northern area of Buenos Aires. In 2024, he published "El destino de una caja" with the editorial Gris Tormenta, which explores the vicissitudes of book distribution and cooperation among colleagues.

Other activities involving the participant:

Mosaic II:

Sandra Ollo

Invitado de Honor

Born in Pamplona, where she lived until she was 29 and completed much of her academic training between the University of Navarra, where she earned a degree in Hispanic Philology, and the National Distance Education University (UNED), where she earned a degree in English Philology. Her early professional steps were also taken in this northern city, working as a research technician at the Félix Huarte Chair of Aesthetics and Contemporary Art, which she combined with teaching at the Institute of Language and Culture at the same university. It was at this chair where she came into contact with the editorial world, as she was responsible for the institution's publications and served as Chief Editor of the magazine Encuentros.

In 2006, she met Jaume Vallcorba, founder first of Quaderns Crema (1979), a reference imprint in Catalan, and later of Acantilado (1999). In 2008, she moved to Barcelona to share both her personal and professional life with him. The following years were a true immersion in the art of editing under the guidance of one of the greatest masters in the Hispanic world, and Sandra Ollo spent this time performing nearly every editorial task.

After Jaume Vallcorba's death in 2014, she took on the role of Editorial Director and completed her training with a master's degree from the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. In the ten years she has led the publishing house, she has continued to learn and make discoveries, hoping that Acantilado and Quaderns Crema will remain a space of passionate learning for those as eager to learn as she was 20 years ago. She is a member of the Navarre Council of Culture, a trustee of the Architecture and Society Foundation, and a member of the Board of the National Library of Spain.

Alejandro Katz

He holds a degree in Language and Literature from UNAM and completed postgraduate studies in Administration at the Di Tella University in Buenos Aires. For nearly twenty years, he directed the Argentine branch of the Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE) and served as an essay editor for the organization. In 2006, he founded Katz Editores, a publishing house specializing in humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, with offices in Buenos Aires and Madrid. A translator and essayist, he regularly publishes articles in major media outlets across Argentina, Latin America, and Spain. In 2020, he won the first prize in the essay competition organized by the National Academy of Political Sciences of Argentina. He is also a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters of the French Republic.

Other activities involving the participant:

Mosaic 1: Book and publishing experiences

María Fernanda Paz-Castillo

Editor, researcher, and reading promoter, she studied Political Science and Literature. She directed the Center for the Study and Promotion of Children's and Young Adult Literature at Banco del Libro and has worked as a promoter and trainer for teachers in various institutions.

She received a research grant from the Internationale Jugendbibliothek (Munich, 2004). She has published anthologies for children, including De pieles, plumas y escamas, Muertos de susto, leyendas de acá y del más allá (selected by The White Ravens 2005), and Poemas de mar y espuma. In recent years, she created and developed the Iguana collection (Ediciones B) and developed the children's line and reading plan for Random House Mondadori Colombia. She edited the Cuadernos de Literatura Infantil Colombiana collection for the National Library of Colombia. In 2015, she was a juror for the Ibero-American Illustration Catalog (FSM, El Ilustradero, and Guadalajara Book Fair), and in 2018, she was a juror for the International Illustration Prize at the Bologna Book Fair-FSM.

She is the founder and editorial director of Cataplum Libros.

Lola Larumbe

Invitado de Honor

A bookseller with a background in biological sciences, she began her journey in the world of books in 1980 at the Rafael Alberti bookstore in Madrid, where she is currently responsible and director. In 2005, she was awarded the V Premio Librero Cultural by the Ministry of Culture and the Confederación Española de Gremios y Asociaciones de Libreros (CEGAL) for her project Encuentros en Alberti. This initiative has transformed the Rafael Alberti bookstore into one of Madrid’s cultural landmarks, hosting major figures in Spanish and Latin American literature as well as emerging writers and creators over the years.

She views the bookstore as a vital space in the city and neighborhood, a cultural echo chamber and meeting place, and advocates for the role of the bookseller in fostering enthusiasm for books and reading.

She has published Pasión de papel. Cuentos sobre el mundo del libro (2007), the preface to Mujeres y libros by Stefan Bollmann (2015), “Los lectores que conozco” in Elogio del libro (2016), and ¡A las librerías! (2016).

She collaborates with the Master's program in Publishing at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, the Complutense Summer School at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and the Cultural Project Management course at La Fábrica. In 2022, she served as the literary director for the Festival Eñe in Madrid.

She has received the Premio Bibliodiversidad from the Asociación de Editores de Madrid, the Boixareu Ginesta Award for Bookseller of the Year 2019 from the Federación de Gremios de Editores de España, and the AMEIS de Plata 2023 from the Asociación de Escritoras e Ilustradoras.

Other activities involving the participant:

Mosaic 1: Book and publishing experiences

Rafael Arias García

Invitado de Honor

Born in Salamanca in 1981, he opened Letras Corsarias in March 2015, after fifteen years of working in bookstores across various Spanish cities. He has been a member of juries for awards such as the Herralde, Alfaguara, Biblioteca Breve, and Salamandra Graphic. With a background in history, a passion for reading, and a profession as a bookseller, he founded the bookstore with the idea of "a bookstore by readers for readers." This identity placed the book at the center of the discourse: careful selection, reading, recommendation, creation of a conducive space for meetings between readers and authors, and the consolidation of an active community around literature and the publishing world. We are a general bookstore focused primarily on fiction and essays, with a significant emphasis from the outset on children's and young adult literature, comics, and poetry. While traditional bookstores might be rare today, we aspire to have a distinctive collection that sets us apart with its unique personality and builds an editorial discourse beyond just new releases. We are one of those. In 2016, we received the National Award for the Promotion of Reading, alongside the bookstores La Conspiración de la Pólvora. This award recognized our program of meetings with authors outside the major Spanish population centers and large literary events. In 2021, we expanded the bookstore to provide more space for key sections: children's and young adult literature, comics, and essays. We have participated as speakers or workshop directors related to bookstores and their activities at events such as the Hay Festival Querétaro (2022), the Congress of the Spanish Booksellers' Guild (2023), and the Salamanca Children's and Young Adult Literature Fair (2023).

Fernando Tarancón

Invitado de Honor

Born in Bilbao in 1971, he holds a degree in Information Sciences from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) (1994). In 1994, he opened the Joker bookstore in Bilbao, specializing in comics, where he continues to work. He is one of the founding partners of the publisher Astiberri, where he served as an editor until 2022.

Since its inception, he directed the monthly magazine Trama, which focused on comic information and criticism, for 39 of its 43 issues. Trama won the Award for Best Magazine at the Barcelona Comic Fair in 2003, 2004, and 2005.

He has taught in the master's program in publishing at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and has participated in various national and international conferences, salons, classes, and seminars, collaborating as a speaker, presenter, or panelist.

He has been a promoter of Zona Cómic, a board member of the Spanish Confederation of Book Guilds and Associations (CEGAL) for four years, and part of the programming committee for the last two book fair conferences. Astiberri is a comic book publisher specializing in graphic novels, founded in Bilbao in 2001. Since 2015, it has also included the humor imprint ¡Caramba!, and in 2019, it launched its children's line, Txikiberri. Astiberri's authors have received various public recognitions, including six National Comic Awards for works published by the publisher. Joker bookstore's mission has always been to promote comics as a cultural medium and support the various cultural agents in the area; some of the most important artists in the country have passed through it. In 2023, the Joker Space was opened, dedicated exclusively to cultural activities, with an agenda featuring nearly one event per day. In 2023, the bookstore received the Cultural Bookstore Award, becoming the first specialized in comics to achieve this recognition.

Pep Olona

Invitado de Honor

He is the coordinator, curator, and mastermind behind Arrebato Libros from its inception, a project that celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2024. He is thoroughly enjoying the journey and runs the Arrebato Libros bookstore in the heart of Malasaña.

He is the editor of authors specializing in stage poetry, with over 30 titles published and distributed by them in more than a hundred locations across Spain and Latin America. He is also responsible for the management of the published authors.

He has organized and coordinated 17 editions of the Poetas Festival (https://poeticofestival.es/), and also works as a curator for parallel projects involving alternative publishing, poetry, music, and performance, such as the Indómitas Editions fair at the Madrid Book Fair.

Through Poetas, he coordinates the Universal Poem project (https://universalpoem.com/), a never-ending poem written by all of humanity, and its educational facet UPLAB (https://uplab.es/), which uses verse as a central unit for social change.

He occasionally compiles poetry anthologies and gives national and international conferences.

In 2023, he coordinated the pUEnte Project, illustrated meetings for the Spanish Presidency of the EU (https://www.accioncultural.es/es/puente-encuentros-ilustrados).

@arrebatolibros
www.arrebatolibros.com
arrebato@arrebatolibros.com

Francesca Di Saint Pierre

Italian by birth, she has lived in Mexico for 10 years. She is a bookseller and cultural manager in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, where she founded La Cosecha, an independent and cooperative bookstore, in 2016. She is a co-organizer, along with two other bookseller friends, of the Agua Viva Literature Festival. She is also part of the editorial collective Tekio Kairos, which publishes books about social movements. She periodically translates, edits, and transcribes.

Paula Barría

Economist with over twenty years of experience in the book market in Santiago, Chile. She is the director of Librerías Metales Pesados and its eponymous publishing house, known for its specialization in publishing essays in the fields of philosophy and aesthetics. Throughout her career, she has been deeply involved in all stages of the editorial process, from editing and publishing to book distribution both in Chile and abroad. She has represented the publishing house at various international book fairs, both as a visitor and an exhibitor.

Cecilia Fanti

(Buenos Aires, 1985) is a writer and bookseller. She grew up in a family accustomed to reading, which encouraged her, from a young age, to the world of books. She studied Literature at the University of Buenos Aires and completed a Master's degree in Creative Writing directed by the poet María Negroni. She has also worked in almost every job in the literary world: she worked in the communications and marketing area of ​​Penguin Random House Argentina—a subsidiary of one of the largest publishing corporations in the world—, collaborated on a couple of independent publishing projects, and taught Language and Literature classes in three secondary schools. As a writer, she has published La chica del milagro and A esta hora de la noche, two novels that reflect on the relationship between the body and language. Based on this set of experiences, in 2017 she opened her own bookstore, Céspedes Libros, in the Colegiales neighborhood of Buenos Aires.