Barcelona (EFE).- Lluís Zendrera, the third generation of the family of the centennial Editorial Juventud, that of the Tintin albums, of Enid Blyton’s club of the Five or the first to publish in Spanish, Heidi or Maya the Bee, considers that “the Children’s and youth books are living their golden age, with more titles than ever”.
In an interview with EFE carried out in the building where the publishing house was born, Lluís Zendrera points out that “from the beginning, with the founder, his grandfather José Zendrera, Juventud made” publications aimed at many different audiences, from the biographies written by Stefan Zweig to the pink novel collection, which gave its name to the genre that still exists and which was tremendously successful with print runs of 5 million copies”.
Tintin, acknowledges Zendrera, has been “one of the important milestones in the history of the publisher, although not the only one.”
He attributes his success to “the editorial commitment made by his aunt Conchita Zendrera, since the first six albums were barely sold, in a Spanish context in which it was difficult to sell titles at 75 pesetas and 74 four-color pages, it was a genre unknown here, but his insistence made him end up being successful, especially in the 70s and 80s until the post-Olympic crisis of the 90s”.
After that golden age, in which more than a million copies were sold among the 23 titles, “today it continues to be sold, but not at that rate, something that does not happen in France either.”
The ‘love story’ between Tintin and Youth was born at a Bologna book fair where Conchita Zendrera met Hergé himself, whom she convinced to publish in Spain, where Casterman had unsuccessfully tried to sell the first two titles, perhaps because it also didn’t have a distribution network, he says.
While Hergé was alive, until 1983, there were no problems with the publication, but from then on, Casterman, which was a family company, owned by his nephews, filed some lawsuits but “we had a contract and after some lawsuits, we have it.” ratified by the Supreme Court until 2053”.
Due to this trajectory, in the last 30-40 years Juventud has invested a lot in children’s and youth literature, a strategy preceded by “those two great successes and bets” by Conchita Zendrera -Tintin and The Five-, which “allowed him to go experimenting with a type of book that was not made in Spain, the illustrated album book for children, the first die-cut books”.
Youth published the first editions in Spanish and Catalan of “Peter Pan and Wendy” (1926), “Alice in Wonderland” (1927), as well as some of the first translations by international authors such as Zweig, Curwood, and in the children’s genre Hans Christian Andersen or the Grimm brothers.
In 1924, the publishing house popularized a new literary genre with its collection “La Novela Rosa”, aimed at a female audience, with print runs of 100,000 copies of some of its titles; and ten years later he launched the collection “La Novela Azul”, aimed at a male and youth audience, with titles by Zane Grey.
The current editor of Juventud believes that the different platforms, video games that compete with reading, “are helping to sell more physical books than ever, because they have more echo, and there has never been so much children’s and youth books on offer.”
In his opinion, librarians and booksellers play a fundamental role in this growing trend as prescribers and have achieved that “many parents who bought any book 20 or 30 years ago now do so with more discretion.”
It illustrates the rise of children’s and youth literature that “in the last fifteen years, the turnover of these books has gone from 15% to 40% in bookstores, and that has been decisive in having healthier bookstores.”
Youth will celebrate the centenary through two exhibitions after the summer, one that will review the history of the publishing house at the Palau Robert, and another at the Jaume Fuster Library, with copies and historical documentation, including a letter from Hergé, another from Josep Pla, who published his only commissioned book in the Barcelona publishing house, a volume on Cadaqués, or an illustration by Ramón Colau, father of the mayoress of Barcelona.
For the anniversary, the publisher is preparing commemorative editions of some of its greatest hits, such as “The ‘Kon-Tiki’ Expedition”, by Thor Heyerdahl, or the Catalan edition of “Alice in Wonderland” with illustrations by Lola Anglada, although, recalls Zendrera, “the best-selling title continues to be ‘Elementary English for Spaniards’ by Vasil Potter”.
In the Youth catalogue, which includes some 10,000 titles, the most recent publishing phenomena have been the adventures of Narval and Medu, by Ben Clanton, and a popularization collection of illustrated albums, made from Spain, which have managed to sell to 34 countries, “including the Anglo-Saxons, who normally do not buy books from abroad”, bets the editor Elodie Bourgeois.
The continuity of this family publishing house is already guaranteed, according to Lluís Zendrera, since “little by little Mar Zendrera” is taking over, his niece.