Fantasy genres have exploded like never before in recent years. From Harry Potter to Game of Thrones, from the new trilogies of The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars to series like Stranger Things or Black Mirror, from utopias and dystopias about social networks, robotics and posthumanism to the consolidation of video games as the front line of the cultural industry. It was the ideal moment to raise from Barcelona a double proposal: to disseminate the new areas of recreation, revisitation and experimentation that these genres are producing in our letters and around the world; to recover a tradition that in our country has not always been well treated, despite having a long list of indisputable names.
About the 2024 edition of the 42nd Festival
The 42nd Barcelona Fantastic Genres Festival celebrates its fourth edition from November 6 to 10, 2024, and will be dedicated to dragons, iconic figures in mythology, youth literature, science fiction and video games. In this edition, which coincides with the Chinese Year of the Dragon, dragons will be present as a metaphor and an aesthetic category, linked to both traditional myths and contemporary concerns, such as technological, climatic and social.
The festival will feature round tables, talks and exhibitions, as well as dragons in different formats: from physical to literary, covering all tastes. In parallel, the 42nd will address other thematic lines such as folk horror, youth narrative and scientific dissemination, all accompanied by more than a hundred national and international authors.
In addition, the program will include opening and closing events, workshops, tributes, theater, podcasts, and the 42 Awards ceremony . This event invites everyone to explore the imagination through talent and writing in a space where multiple worlds coexist.
Featured Guests
- Victoria Álvarez (Salamanca, 1985) is a writer, art historian and professor. Winner of awards such as the Torrente Ballester, she is known for her trilogy "Dreaming Spires", which will be republished this year. Her works stand out for mixing fantastic adventures and historical elements.
- Edgar Cantero (Barcelona, 1981) is a writer, screenwriter and cartoonist. His career includes successes such as "Meddling Kids", a New York Times best seller, and has been translated into several languages. This year he will present "Ràdio Free Camaco", a mixture of crime novel, social criticism and supernatural elements.
- P. Djèlí Clark (New York, 1971) is a writer who fuses his interest in history and sociology with speculative fiction. He has been a finalist and winner of awards such as the World Fantasy Award, Nebula and Locus, for works such as "Ring Shout" and "The Drums of the Black God".
- Frances Hardinge (Kent, 1973) is a British author of young adult fantasy literature. She has won the Costa Book Award and the Llibreter Prize. This fall she publishes her first illustrated novel, "The Island of Whispers", which continues her successful career in the young adult genre.
- Albert Sánchez Piñol (Barcelona, 1973) is an anthropologist and writer. His novel "La piel fría" has been translated into 37 languages and sold 800,000 copies. He is also the author of "Pandora in the Congo" and "Victus", consolidating his position as a key figure in fantastic literature in Catalan and Spanish.
The name of the festival: 42
42 is the number par excellence of science fiction and, by extension, of all fantastic genres. To the question "What is the meaning of life, the universe and everything else?", which in Douglas Adams ' novel "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is posed to the computer Deep Thought, the answer was 42 after 7.5 million years of meditation. The computer however added that the question was not well posed. This led the characters to build a better computer to be able to ask the Ultimate Question, and the story continues...
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