Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror in Spain
The genre is experiencing a blooming period. Big names like George R.R. Martin, Patrick Rothfuss, Brandon Sanderson, Andrzej Sapkowski, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Robert Jordan sell hundreds of copies every week, thanks to television adaptations, but also, in recent years, fantastic fiction has been gaining ground over the other genres and is becoming, little by little, the main trend. For example, the most recent worldwide publishing phenomenon – although in Spain we are always a few months late due to translations – is the ‘‘romantasy’’ boom, led with books by Rebecca Yarros.
In the Spanish market, perhaps the most important development this year was Blackie Books’ commitment to the Blackwater Saga by Michael McDowell, released in serial form – as it was originally conceived – and attracting thousands of readers.
There are two large publishing groups (Penguin Random House and Planeta) which dominate our market weekly, and have their own imprints dedicated to the genre – Nova and Minotauro, respectively. Those publishers set a frantic publication pace, and dominate a market where diversity is not as important. That means some of the more interesting and independent publications in the Spanish market can get lost among their fast pace of releases.
MAINSTREAM PUBLISHERS
Besides the aforementioned two large publishing groups, and others dedicated to general fiction, we have a few imprints and publishers that opt – sometimes – for fantasy. One of the most popular is called Anagrama, relying on books such as Olga Ravn’s The Employees, or authors like Kazuo Ishiguro or the renowned Mariana Enriquez. The Random House label publishes those stories that cross genres, for instance the works of Max Porter or Han Kang. Alpha Decay does the same, with Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung. Impedimenta publishing house, besides rescuing Stanislaw Lem’s classics, has also brought us the work of Walter Tevis. Fulgencio Pimentel is home to the great Georgi Gospidinov, alongside other literature that crosses borders. We also have publishers with remarkable imprints such as Editorial Barrett, which last year published a strange novel by Charlie Kaufman, and Pálido Fuego, whose editors always try to make our brains explode with novels like Flicker by Theodore Roszak.
INDIE GENRE PUBLISHERS
Some of the heavy lifting in diversifying the market is done by small publishers that offer all the fantasy subgenres in their catalogs. In the fantasy market, we have Duermevela, with a beautiful editorial line – some of their most highlighted publications are Spear by Nicola Griffith or works by P. Djèlí Clark, but it also rescues classics such as The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip. Obscura also bring us short novels by P. DjèlíClark, but it focuses more on Spanish authors such as Cristina Jurado or Jesus Cañadas. I could not forget Insólita Editorial, which has brought us the phenomenal stories of Fonda Lee and a couple of Becky Chambers’s novels. Red Key Books and Umbriel publish authors like Mark Lawrence, Aliette de Bodard, Naomi Novik, Victoria Schwab, and Ava Reid.
In regards to science fiction, we are not so lucky with Spanish translations. Crononauta publishing house maintains a constant commitment, with works by Nnedi Okorafor and national authors such as the renowned Celia Corral-Vázquez. A new line from Dolmen publishing house, called Freder, has also begun to improve this bleak panorama, with such as Time Was by Ian McDonald and Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord. Last, but not least, is Alamut – Spanish publisher of the Geralt of Rivia books – which has been betting on all of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s science fiction for a few years now, and bringing us his most award-winning trilogies.
Among all those subgenres included in speculative fiction, Spanish readers hit the jackpot with horror. We enjoy several small publishers who bet on increasingly interesting titles. We cannot mention horror without highlighting the prestige of Valdermar’s gothic series, but if you ask me which publisher is bringing out the most captivating voices, my answer would be La Biblioteca de Carfax. They publish top-level horror names like Gemma Files and Stephen Graham Jones alongside more classics like Violet Hunt. As I said, they are not alone. Dilatando Mentes publishes on books by Philip Fracassi, Gwendolyn Kiste, and Michael Cisco; Dimensiones ocultas brings us stories by Richard Chizmar or Adam Cesare; a Dolmen imprint called Pazuzu is betting on national horror like the Dolmen’s Stoker line, and has been supplying the public with works borderlining horror for years.
LATIN AMERICAN CURRENT AND NATIONAL PRODUCTS
Recently in the Spanish market, we have experienced the fast growth of a new wave of Latin American authors who have been established as the popular and sought after. Of course, that includes the queen of horror, Mariana Enriquez, with her stories and Our Part at Night; the remarkable Mónica Ojeda with Las voladoras; Agustina Bazterrica, with her global bestseller Tender Is the Flesh; plus Samanta Schweblin, María Fernanda Ampuero, and Elaine Vilar Madruga… the list is long, and we have to thank publishers such as Páginas de Espuma, Anagrama, and Random House, who have allowed us to discover these writers, step by step, until they have become essential on our shelves.
The Spanish national market is interesting, because it (almost) never reaches the readership levels that their Latin American counterparts have in their own markets. This includes big names like Laura Fernández and her award-winning La señora Potter no es exactamente Santa Claus; the epic fantasy of Aranzazu Serrano Lorenzo; the everpresent triumvirate of national horror that consists of Guillem López, Emilio Bueso, and Ismael Biurrun; Layla Martínez (also translated into several languages); and more recent names that should be better known, including Marina Tena Tena, Ferran Varela, Beatriz Alcaná or Inés Galiano, who have been setting off sparks in the hearts of a new generation of Spanish fantasy writers.
PUBLISHERS OF SPANISH WRITERS
I did not want to end this report without naming and giving credit to the many small Spanish publishers who focus on our national writers, and who have brought to our attention a small list of names that we follow religiously. Among them is the Apache publishing house, with a continuous commitment to horror and fantasy. A similar publishing line is Ediciones El Transbordador, which has been discovering gems like Ferran Varela’s dark fantasy, Isabel del Río Sanz’s cosmic horror, and the unmissable Nieves Mories. The publishing houses Cerbero, Numak, and Literup have always kept their commitment to Spanish authors, making a lot of noise on social networks and bringing us stories I consider essential, including Las mocedades de Rodrigo by Almijara Barbero Carvajal, a retelling of the life of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (El Cid) as a queer uchronia with a parodic tone, and Paula Peralta’s horror/slasher Sobre dioses y gula, and the hilarious Crónica de dos noches sin verano by Inés Galiano, about a convention of vampires and werewolves in Murcia.
WHAT’S COMING
If we take a look at what’s coming in the next four months in Spain, we get a glimpse of interesting developments. For example, this September we will get Alex Landragin’s Crossings, published by Duomo Ediciones, which last year brought us the wonderful S. Crossings is designed to be read in two different ways, and spans 150 years and seven lives. China Miéville & Keanu Reeves’s highly anticipated novel The Book of Elsewhere will also arrive in September from Océano Gran Travesía, which is also the publisher of T. Kingfisher’s books. We will finally be able to enjoy in Spanish the multiple-award-winning Arkady Martine, published by Nocturna, which is also publishing Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. Runas publishing house, home of Joe Abercrombie’s novels, will continue to support Catriona Ward with one of her previous novels, Ravenwood. Minotauro, publishers of J.R.R. Tolkien and Grady Hendrix in Spanish, will bet on the horror genre with the latter’s essay collection Paperbacks from Hell and Jordan Peele’s anthology Out There Screaming. Nova will bring us a nearly simultaneously publication of the long-awaited fifth installment of Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive. Ático de los libros, home of Emily St. John Mandel’s novels and the works of Mervyn Peake, will publish Stuart Turton’s latest novel. The emblematic Alfaguara will bet on Booker Prize winner The Song of the Prophet by Paul Lynch.
The publishing market in Spain does not stop, but advances at a frenetic, practically unsustainable pace – every month, or even every week, we have dozens of interesting new releases in our bookstores, and this report covers only a small part of it.
–Daniel Perez Castrillón
This report and more like it in the March 2024 issue of Locus..
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