The line goes around the block. There are many girls with summer outfits and cloth bags and backpacks full of books; There is also multicolored hair, gothic aesthetics and a lot of expectation. They could well wait for Taylor Swift, but the queue, in the middle of Gran Vía … from Madrid, it is by a writer, one who published her first book at the age of 37, with which she announced to the world her own, the ‘Grishaverse’, a land of Russian reminiscences where there are powerful ‘grishas’ who control the elements. In her latest novel, however, Leigh Bardugo (Jerusalem, 49 years old) transfers magic to an earthly city, newly named capital of the kingdom.
Nadia, Mari, María and Lidia were waiting this Saturday at the doors of the Press Palace. “I’ve read practically everything by her, although my ‘favs’ are ‘The Familiar’ and ‘The Ninth House,'” says Nadia, 28, her tattooed skin peeking out from between the chiffon sleeves of her black dress. she. ‘The Familiar’ is Leigh Bardugo’s latest novel set in the Madrid of the Golden Age, at that critical moment when Philip II sets up his court in the Villa and when his secretary, Antonio Pérez, falls into disgrace. A historical fact that the writer based in Los Angeles imbues with magic and turns into another success of the ‘romantasy’.
Fantasy with high doses of romance, or vice versa, ‘romantasy’ – the English fusion of ‘romance’ and ‘fantasy’ – sweeps the Zetas and late millennials. On Instagram alone, the label has 690,000 publications and hundreds of ‘influencers’ succeed by reviewing the titles of Bardugo and other best-selling authors of the genre such as Sarah J. Maas, Jennifer L. Armentrout or Rebeca Yarros. “I like Bardugo because it is an adult romance, but not so much focused on the plot of the romance, but rather on building a story that makes sense and is serious,” highlights Nadia, before entering the Press Palace, on a date. parallel to the Madrid Book Fair, which brought together almost 500 readers this Saturday to get a dedication from Bardugo.
The writer Leigh Bardugo, this Saturday, at the Palacio de la Prensa
ISABEL PERMUY
‘The familiar’ tours Madrid, although a different Madrid. The story starring a servant, Luzia Cotado, a kind of Cinderella capable of working small miracles, and her immortal relative, Guillén Santángel, takes place at the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th century, and stops at the church of San Ginés, in the Plaza de las Descalzas, in the market in the Plaza del Arrabal (the current Plaza Mayor), in the gardens of the Alcázar and El Rastro, in the recreational estate of Antonio Pérez (today the convent of the Asunción). Bardugo researched and researched to recreate those scenarios and, above all, the popular culture of the time. «He wanted to write about the Inquisition, but I needed the right time and the right place. The scandal between Felipe II and Antonio Pérez seemed very juicy to me,” explains Bardugo, smiling, charismatic, in front of her audience, “that was the moment in which Madrid became Madrid, a period of transition for the city, and the “The city had to be a character in itself.”
A star of the genre
The Hidra publishing house announced Bardugo’s stop in Madrid on April 29. The writer has sold more than 3 million copies and her first biography, ‘Shadow and Bone’ was adapted into a Netflix series with actor Ben Barnes as a seductive villain. “When the email was opened to reserve a place, within minutes we received thousands of requests,” says the publisher’s communications director, Andrea Martín. Alejandro, a 24-year-old from Alicante, was lucky. “I booked them as I saw on Instagram, but my friend sent it a few minutes later and he didn’t get it,” he says; His friend Gorka, 25, only accompanies him in line for a while. Alejandro lives in Madrid and treasures the special editions of ‘Six of Crows’, ‘Kingdom of Thieves’ and ‘The Familiar’, thick copies with hard covers and tinted edges, another sign of ‘romantasy’. “We all like the fact that there is romance, and if you add that extra bit of magic and fantasy on top of that… Because love is magic, and what is more magical than entering a world of pointy ears and wands?” reflect. In the cloth bag he carries all the books, ready to sign.
ISABEL PERMUY
In the hallways of the Press Palace, Andrea Martín poses with readers like a lady from the Golden Age, wearing a velvet and pearl dress and her hair tied up in an elegant bun. Bardugo’s admirers also take photos of the covers of her books – bilogies, trilogies and anthologies of fantastic stories – displayed like posters for blockbuster movies. In the amphitheater, while the young people settle in, songs by Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift play. Shortly before noon, everyone is silent, and Bardugo appears, wearing a flowing black dress, long blonde hair, earrings with mushrooms growing on them, and her cane in her right hand, a crutch – the writer has suffered from osteonecrosis since 20 years – that shines under the spotlight. Half a thousand people burst into applause.
Bardugo says thank you in Spanish and talks about ‘The Familiar’, his creative and research process, his characters and his gray morality. The writer draws exclamations and laughter from the audience, especially when she recognizes that Ben Barnes, who plays the Dark One of her ‘Grishaverse’ in the Netflix series – although the third season has been canceled – “smells very good.” “In your books there is a lot of representation of non-normative bodies, racialized people, LGTBI collective… I think that if many of us had had that in our adolescence, the world would be more beautiful,” says a young woman during question time. Bardugo becomes emotional and, with tears in her eyes, she responds: «The world is diverse. I don’t write books to send a message, because then I would write sermons; I write to tell stories, and I represent the world as it is.
The talk ends and the rules for signing are explained. A maximum of three books per person. There will be no personal dedications. The cell phones unlocked so that the editorial team can take photos of each one and the copies opened to speed up. Row by row, the readers form a queue again. Bardugo does not write autofiction, nor does he play with formal experiments, nor does he appear in the pages of cultural supplements, but he is captivating. In one hour he has signed a thousand books in Madrid.
