Gijón, Jul 5 (EFE).- The Black Week in Gijón will have the participation of a hundred and a half writers from different literary genres to celebrate its thirty-sixth edition, which will start next Friday and which on this occasion will pay homage to their founder, the Spanish-Mexican writer Paco Ignacio Taibo II, who gave the festival its traditional style that mixes culture with popular festivities.
After the festival was awarded the Gold Medal for Fine Arts in 2021 and with the Gold Medal from the Gijón City Council this year, the organization has decided to pay tribute to the person who promoted the idea that “good literature is compatible with a calamari sandwich”, stated the director, Ángel de la Calle.
The “Rufo”, the traditional miniature sculpture of a detective that is given to the winners of the literary contest, reproduces this year the figure of Paco Taibo II, who will also be honored at a public event in the venue located on the grounds of the former Naval Gijón shipyards, next to the Cantabrian Sea.
With an extensive bibliography of crime novels and essays, Paco Ignacio Taibo Mahojo, known as Paco Taibo II, born in Gijón in 1948 and a Mexican national, was appointed director of the Fondo de Cultura Económica in 2018 and directed Gijón’s Black Week until 2012. when he left office to assume the Secretary of Art and Culture of the National Executive Committee of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena).
From the direction of the Gijón contest, he promoted the development of a culture festival that is held in the middle of an amusement fair and that every year awards the Dashiell Hammett prizes, for detective novels; Rodolfo Walsh, to black stories based on real events; Spartacus, historical genre; Celsius, for science fiction, and Memorial Silverio Cañada, for the first black novel by an author.
This year they are competing for the Dasielll Hammett award for the best crime novel published in Spanish during the past year 2022, “Litio”, by Imanol Caneyada; “The President”, by Alicia Gimenez Barlett; “End of season”, by María Inés Krimer; “The time of the flies”, by Claudia Piñeiro, and “The deer and the shadows”, by Diego Ameixeiras.
For their part, the finalists for the Rodolfo Walsh award are Juan Tallón, with “Obra maestro”; Mariano Sánchez Soler, with “The long ultra march”; Facundo Pastor, with “Embush”, and Luis Roso, with “The crime of Malladas”.
The thirty-sixth edition of the Gijón Black Week will begin this Friday with a reception for the guests at the Gijón City Hall, the opening of the venue to the public and the inauguration ceremony with the traditional cutting of a black ribbon in the presence of local authorities and regional.
The film director Fernando León de Aranoa will present that same day the documentary “Sentiendo lo mucho”, an intimate portrait of the singer-songwriter Joaquín Sabina that will be screened at an event with an audience in which the filmmaker Lola Salvador will also participate.
The organization of the contest has also dedicated a space to photojournalism with the exhibitions “El chalet, confined in the old normality”, by Marcial Guillén, and “Resistencias 2”, as well as comics, a genre that has gained prominence in recent editions .
For their part, within the extensive program that will last until July 16, the writers and poets Luis García Montero, Antón Reixa, Juan Vicente Piqueras, Roció Acebal and Martín López Vega will participate in the traditional poetic evening.