Quim Monzo's Opening Speech

The opening speech Quim Monzo gave at the Frankfurt Book Fair is now available as a pdf in German, Catalan, Spanish, and English.

It’s a very fun, self-referential speech about a writer trying to write his opening address. . . .

Won’t reading the names of all these writers (most of whom are unknown to the literary world that circulates in Frankfurt) just be tedious for the audience at the opening ceremony who will have to listen to so many unfamiliar names? Won’t they be looking at their watches and thinking, “What a bore!”? And so he decides he won’t mention any names (even though, in fact, he has already mentioned them in the very process of describing his doubts as to whether he should mention them or not). What’s more, he’s read that at the Frankfurt Book Fair there will be an exhibition that explains all this. Although—to be frank—how many of the persons who attend this inaugural event will later visit this exhibition with any more interest than a merely official show of etiquette? Let us be frank and optimistic: very few. Even if this is a Book Fair, where the least-known authors ought to be the ones who would most pique the reading appetite of those who were interested in discovering literary gems and not simply following the commercial drumbeat of what is in vogue at the time.

Monzo’s short story I Have Nothing to Wear (which reminds me of Cortazar’s “Don’t Blame Anyone”) is now available at Words Without Borders.