New Spanish Books: The online guide of titles from Spanish publishers and literary agents with rights for translation in the UK. To consult titles available in other markets please click on the above links.
Fernando Lanzas
Fernando Lanzas (Economic and Commercial Counsellor at the Spanish Embassy in London)
Fernando Lanzas was born in Madrid in 1951. He graduated in Law and in Business Studies. As a civil servant belonging to the Government Economic Service, he has held a variety of posts in the Spanish administration, including Director General at the Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade (ICEX), Technical Director at the Spanish National Library and Director General of Books, Archives and Libraries at the Ministry of Culture in Madrid. He is currently Economic & Commercial Counsellor of the Spanish Embassy in London.
His collections of poems have been published under the following titles: “El Frente de Madrid” (Renacimiento, 1993), “Tren de Vida” (Renacimiento, 1999), “Parole per L’alba” (bilingual Spanish/Italian – I Quaderni della Valle, 2004), “Bajo tu piel” (Cajasur, 2004) and “Salón de Baile” (Visor, 2006), which won the Tiflos Poetry Prize. He has also had numerous poems published in literary magazines. Fernando Lanzas has given poetry readings in Madrid at, among other places, the Residencia de Estudiantes, the Círculo de Bellas Artes and the Spanish National Library, and in London at the Tertulias Hispano-Británicas, the Richmond Book Festival and at the Instituto Cervantes.
During your career you have held several positions in the field of cultural management. What is your connection to books?
Fernando Lanzas: My involvement with books started early. Since I was very young, I always enjoyed reading and writing. When I started working in the public sector an opportunity arose to take position as a Deputy Director of the National Library of Spain and what was just a hobby eventually turned into a full time vocation. And hence poetry, one of my interests, became my living. After working in the National Library, I was appointed Director General for the Book Industry, Archives and Libraries at the Ministry of Culture in Madrid. From my experience I can say that any opportunity can lead you to a personal or professional enhancement at the least expected time!
What made you launch a product such as newspanishbooks.com (NSB)?
F.L.: Our aim with NSB has been to promote translation rights rather than physical books. We soon realised that promoting translation rights in the UK was as important or more than promoting books written in Spanish, and that has been the focus of our strategy. The situation of Spanish literature in the UK was a paradox; we had a thriving language and a first-class literature, but it lacked an equivalent promotional plan.
Taking this into account, it was of vital importance to make the most of factors such as the growing interest for the Spanish language, and indeed Spain as a destination.
With the support of the Cervantes Institute in London, and its former Director, Mr. Salvador Estébanez, we studied programs that already existed of other countries (Germany, France, and some Scandinavian countries) and we designed our own. I had known the main players of the book sector in Spain, and Mr. Estébanez knew the main editors and translators in the United Kingdom, something that turned out to be essential for launching the project. We also had the invaluable collaboration of Amanda Hopkinson of the BCLT, British Centre of Literary Translation, and key UK editors such as Bill Swainson and Christopher McLehose.
Just at that moment the success of the novel “The Shadow of the Wind” (La sombra del viento) by Carlos Ruiz Zafón turned out to be an instant boost for Spanish literature in the UK, as it opened up the reader’s eyes to Spanish fiction. British readers were used to Latin American fiction writers, not so much to Spaniards, hence the need to step up our efforts. However, as many Latin American writers work with Spanish publishers or agents anyway, NSB becomes a promotional tool for writers in Spanish regardless of their nationality.
What other activities are part of your strategy in the UK?
F.L.: Trade visits are another important tool to encourage communication and knowledge between professionals from both countries. We organized the first trade visit to Spain in 2005, when we took 19 editors specialised in literature in translation from the UK to Madrid and Barcelona, the power centres of Spanish publishing. Since then we have taken many more, we believe it is a really useful and worthwhile effort. We have also included in our trips librarians, translators and booksellers. All of them have an important role to play and we learn from them constantly.
Have you noticed an increase in the number of translations in the UK?
F.L.: Yes. Translations from Spanish have been increasing between 25 and 50% in the years after 2004. Just recently for example, The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize shortlist was published and two of the six books were translations from Spanish. These books have been published and translated by people who have taken part in some of our programmes. This is great news for all, we are delighted that their work is being recognised.
It is always difficult to establish a link between promotional initiatives which are aimed at producing long term results to specific operations in the short term. However, we certainly believe that these initiatives have raised the awareness between the literary worlds of both nations which in turn has led to new business deals in the last few years. On the other hand, statistical data on rights exports are difficult to come by. We hope that the newly created ADAL (Spanish Association of Literary Agents) will help us increase our knowledge in this respect.
We still have a long way to go of course. The UK market is notoriously difficult; we all know that translations are at a lower level compared to other European nations, but that only makes us even more determined in our efforts.
Literature can have a huge impact on a nation’s image. How do you think it is affecting Spain?
F.L.:. Hugely. Reading is often an immersion in a given culture, a voyage that precedes the “physical” trip. I am confident that translated Spanish literature is helping change stereotypes that still persist, and portray accurately the reality of modern Spain.