Mendoza, a Sant Jordi with bodyguards
Eduardo Mendoza has been signing books at Sant Jordi for over half a century (he published his first novel, The Truth About the Savolta Case, in 1975), but never until today had he had to do so accompanied by a bodyguard. An ironic comment about the May 23rd celebration (one must say Book Day, he came to say, because the figure of the saint “has nothing to do with books or writers, Sant Jordi was an animal abuser and probably couldn’t read”) ignited the flame of indignation in pro-independence sectors, with the Joventut Nacionalista de Catalunya (Junts’ youth wing) announcing a campaign for the Generalitat to withdraw his Creu de Sant Jordi, and from the anonymity of social media, there was even a call to burn the author’s books, taking advantage of the Sant Joan bonfires.