The first time I participated in Sant Jordi, I did so without expectations and with a certain feeling of smallness. I was 30 years old, had a published saga that my friends believed in more than I did, and a terrible vertigo that barely allowed me to look beyond my feet. Dreams sometimes come true, but no one prepares us for the fear of losing what you never thought you would achieve. That morning, on the way to the first signing, someone told me that I should live that day as if it were the last, because no one knows what will happen tomorrow, especially when it comes to the craft of putting words together. I was a novice, had no realistic idea of the publishing sector, but I did have an immense enthusiasm.
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That first morning, Barcelona responded to my enthusiasm like an old friend, flirtatious and adorned, with its streets teeming with life and the promise of always preserving within it a passion that, at that point, I could only still sense deep inside me.
Since then, more than a decade has passed, and I’ve been lucky enough to be here, year after year, to discover that Sant Jordi is about books and roses, of course, but also familiar faces that become friends, races through Las Ramblas to reach the right stand, young people selling flowers on every corner, and couples in love exchanging a bit of devotion enclosed in pages. It’s the nerves sprinkled with laughter, the reunion with colleagues, the pats on the back, and the feeling that something culminates and gives meaning to everything, even if you can’t pinpoint what that something or that everything is.
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Sant Jordi is a very much alive giant, a roller coaster, nerves on edge, and, above all, the readers. Sant Jordi is a wonderful mythological animal formed by hundreds of readers who are soul, engine, fuel, and magic, and who restore our faith that the world moves fast but the book keeps pace. And yes, I will always live it as if it were the last, because sometimes the fear of not knowing what awaits me in the future may overcome me, but I know that this celebration will always connect me with that immense enthusiasm.
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