Writer Imma Monsó, Sant Jordi 2022's town crier

We are returning to normality and filling the streets and squares with colours and books, authors and, above all, citizens eager to discover and browse through the latest publishing novelties. We are also returning to the habit of taking home readings for the weeks, or perhaps months to come – and, of course, roses, the symbol of love and spring, are not missing either. Right now, everything seems to indicate that in 2022 we will have a 23 April, a special date in the calendar, "like those of the past", a Sant Jordi that will bring smiles to the city's faces.

The Barcelona City Council and the Barcelona City of Literature programme have prepared a busy schedule. In fact, the Diada de Sant Jordi will begin to warm up on the 21st and 22nd with bookshops and florists stopping in the streets. On the 21st, they will also install a plaque dedicated to the writer Anna Murià. On the 22nd at 6 p.m., there will be one of the traditional events in the hours leading up to Sant Jordi: the Pregó de la Lectura, in which the guest speaker will be the writer Imma Monsó. She began her career as a storyteller in 1996 with the publication of the book of short stories Si és no és, winner of the Ribera d'Ebre Prize, and the novel Nunca se sabe, winner of the Tigre Juan Prize in its Spanish version. With her second novel, Com unes vacances, published in 1998, she won the Prudenci Bertrana Prize and the Cavall Verd-Blai Bonet Prize for narrative. Since the publication of her third novel, Tot un caràcter, in 2001, she has been considered one of the most important writers of her literary generation. Monsó has contributed to several print media, including La Vanguardia, L'Avenç, El Periódico de Catalunya and Catalan Writing. Her work has been translated into Spanish, and some of it has also been translated into English, Arabic, French, Hungarian, Italian, Dutch and Hungarian. And on the 23rd, authors and publishers will meet at the Palau de la Virreina to get ready for the Diada with the traditional Sant Jordi breakfast. The big novelty this year is the Superilla literària, which will take place in the city centre between the Diagonal and Gran Via / Pau Claris and Balmes.

As a prologue to Sant Jordi's Day, Biblioteques de Barcelona will offer a space for authors and readers to meet with the Diàlegs de Sant Jordi. This activity, part of the Programa d’Acció Lectora, will take shape through three days of conversations between writers from all over the world based on affinities in their latest works and talks with international authors – a proposal in which El Clot-Josep Benet Library (auditorium of the Disseny Hub Barcelona) and the CCCB will serve as meeting places for books and literature. You will find, among others, Ohran Pamuk, David Trueba, Maksin Óssipov, Núria Bendicho and Santiago Auserón. It is a network of libraries that will soon be extended with the opening of the Gabriel García Márquez Library in the Sant Martí district, specialising in Latin American literature.

At the same time, on 23 April, an event will take place in Lisbon to commemorate the 2004 Pregó de la Lectura, in which José Saramago was the guest speaker. It will be held at the Palácio Galveias Library, supported by the libraries of Barcelona and Lisbon, the Camões Institute and the José Saramago International Chair of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). During the event, they will broadcast an excerpt from Samargo's Sant Jordi proclamation, in 2004, in the Saló de Cent of the Barcelona City Hall, as this year marks the centenary of the birth of the Portuguese Nobel Prize winner.

You can find further information about Sant Jordi through this link.