Locked in the bookstores closed to lime and song and surrounded by mountains of boxes with the novelties of Sant Jordi. This is how many of the large, small and medium booksellers are found in Catalonia, where the most important event in the sector, Sant Jordi (April 23), is still in limbo: without being officially postponed or canceled. Everyone awaits news of the meeting that this Tuesday will have the union of booksellers, distributors and publishers with the Generalitat to make a final decision.

Whatever it is, the truth is that the sector has been waiting for some kind of gesture for days, which for some is late . The Madrid Book Fair was postponed to October last Friday and Món Llibre, the appointment of the children's and youth book, which jumps to June 20 and 21, was also re-scheduled.

Why is it costing so much to do the same with one of the most important appointments for the publishing sector, in which millions of euros are at stake? "It is the first thing they should have done. It is as if they were afraid to make a decision . They wanted to cover their eyes instead of acting quickly. But it would be good to know something as soon as possible to get to work now and take it as well as possible" , says Núria Nájera, in front of Lilliput, a small children's bookstore in Cerdanyola del Vallès.

Lilliput does not sell newspapers, a condition that could exempt it from its forced closure since last Saturday, the last day it opened. It also has no online sales service . So Nájera is facing a critical situation these days, like many other colleagues: she has already made around 80% of orders with her sights set on Sant Jordi and now she finds everything paralyzed "except invoices and rent, because even if we don't enter, we have to keep paying. " Returns, one of the keys to the publishing business, are expected to be complicated by the slowdown in warehouses and the saturation of the agencies.

"On Friday I continued to receive visits from some commercials, as if nothing had happened. It is all chaos, nothing has been planned, nothing is being managed well, " criticizes Nájera, who regrets that from the Gremi de Llibreters they have only forwarded the information government official, instead of "the specific answers booksellers need." "We are one step behind. We are super unprotected," he laments.

Whether Sant Jordi is postponed for the rentrée or the fall or for San Juan (June 23), some of the possible options being considered, what is clear is that the dyad of next April 23 will not be like that of every year when millions of readers take to the streets to buy a book, a rose, and stand in line to get a signature from a writer. Although the bookstores have reopened by then, the crowds and massive character of the party are unlikely to continue.

If the big chains and the bookstores with more names and visibility of the big cities are already having a hard time, the small shops in many towns seriously fear "not being able to reopen after this", regrets the Lilliput bookshop. Faced with such a scenario, virtual storytelling or online reading clubs are some of the options with which to try to alleviate these days of bookish drought, especially for the smallest of the house. Nájera also points to another idea: "It would be good if the large publishing groups allowed us to refinance the payments so as not to suffocate ourselves completely."

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  • Catalonia
  • book Fair
  • Sant Jordi
  • culture
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  • Coronavirus
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