Joe Sacco & Alfonso Zapico

People keep asking me if I`m "scouting" here in Cartagena and though that's not the reason I came, I have to admit, it's one of the things that draws me personally to literary Festivals.

Today I discovered a writer whose name I've heard but whose work I didn't know very well: Joe Sacco. Born in Malta, Sacco was raised in the US and originally trained as a journalist. His love of comics, though, eventually overrode all the journalism he was doing and I'd say now he's one of the few graphic journalists working today.

He insists on calling himself a cartoonist first but there's no denying that his work has important journalistic elements.

He has written about Russia's Chechnyan problem, Sarajevo, Palestine, and US poverty. His latest work is called The Great War and is at the top of my list next week...

I love how detailed his art is: you can look at a page and study it for the longest time, seeing something new with each scane of the panels. When you consider, for example, the work of Guy Delisle (another excellent cartoonist who flirts with non-fiction subjects), it's like comparing a pencil sketch to a painting.

At any rate, Sacco is an author I definitely envision at Blue Met at some point in the future.

Another graphic novelist whose work I do know is Alfonso Zapico, a high profile translation of his La ruta Joyce which traced James Joyce's Dubliners is excellent. I also found a copy of Cafe Budapest and leafed through it a few months back. I love his blend of true life stories with the highly fictionalized panels of characters. Zapico is an interesting figure and represents, I think, a burgeoning comics industry in the Spanish-speaking world. Unfortunately, not much gets translated into English (more into French). I guess that's a good reason to improve my Spanish...

I love this blending of genres with cartoons: journalism, history, biography, politics, war: it's a hopeful sign at this time when journalism is going through such major transition throughout the world. A new way of telling stories, true or otherwise, a new way of exposing, of praising, a new way of enlightening.

 

Hay Festival: Gael Garcia Bernal, John Boyne & David Foenkinos

Haven't actually seen any events yet since they only start this afternoon but a few days of literary adventure have been on my agenda since I arrived on Tuesday.

First, the location: what an amazing little town. Well, at least the central part (a UNESCO world heritage site for all of its colonial architecture) is little. Full of so much life, too: cars racing by narrow cobblestoned streets, horses pulling carriages, colorful Cuban women in floral skirts and hair wraps selling fruit on the street.

It's hot. Very hot. But when I see pictures of images of snow falling in the North, I want to jump for joy for

Bernal talks about his career

getting a brief respite from it all.

Today I am seeing American writer John Boyne (Irish author of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas) as well as an event this evening with Mexican actor Gael García Bernal.

So far, it's been lunches, meetings and sipping Corona outside in stone courtyards with a sea breeze blowing in. The nights here are extraordinary: the city almost complete shuts down so the streets are empty except for an occasional bar spilling out onto the sidewalk or a strolling band serenading tourists with quiet music.

Foenkinos talks about his latest novel

I ran into French writer David Foenkinos last night walking down a quiet street and said hello briefly. He's doing several events here along with French writers Emmanuel Carrère and Virginie Despentes. Also looking forward to hearing Irvine Walsh being interviewed by Eleanor Wachtel (who, naturally, will be at Blue Met in the spring, as usual).

I'd really like to see Alfonso Zapico, the graphic novelist/cartoonist and author of a graphic treatment of James Joyce's Dublin. Unfortunately, my Spanish is only so-so still so not sure how much of it I will miss (and there are two other events on at the same time I want to see: always the problem with good festivals!).

And lots more still! To think, the events haven't even officially started yet...