Celebrating the literature of the guest nation, Spain at the fifth edition of Kerala Literature Festival, was a discussion moderated by Veronica Aranda. The panel featured, Ruben Abella, Alejandro Cuevas, and Ana Isabel Conejo hailing from Castilla Y Leon.
The session began by narrating the topography of the region in North-Western Spain, about which they opined in unison that their native place had influenced them as writers. Talking about what inspired them as a writer, they said that awards may not be the most important entity that a writer must possess but it can definitely encourage the writer. Speaking about awards, Alejandro said that the prominence given to novels in the category of awards made them popular in Spain and Europe. He added that novels, especially crime thrillers and historic novels are the in trend in the recent times. He also had the opinion that the influence of digital media are a reason for reducing the number of literature enthusiasts.
Ruben Abella shared his view that the three most important factors in a novel is its ability to impart pleasure, its aesthetic beauty and the wisdom that it imparts to its reader. When asked about the importance of social media fan following in literature, all of them were of the opinion that they were least important. They also shared their concern on how publishers chose writers based on their social media fan base.
When asked about their connection with Indian literature, they said that Rabindranath Tagore is a very popular Indian figure in Spain and contemporary writers like Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie and Vikram Seth also enjoy a very huge fan following in Spain.