Queen Letizia of Spain has visited Madrid’s Parque del Retiro, where, for the next 17 days, Madrid’s Book Fair is taking place.
Feria del Libro de Madrid is one of the most prestigious literary events in the Spanish speaking world, and the event is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year.
The event is aimed at promoting books, reading and the activity of entrepreneurs, entities and institutions that are dedicated to publishing as well as the distribution and sales of books to the public.
Each year, the Fair has a different country as a special guest, and this 2020-2021 edition is hosting Colombia in that role.
Colombia celebrated its 200th anniversary in 2019, and the Spanish Royal Household highlighted how its presence at the Book Fair is aimed at putting under the spotlight the progress the country has made in diversity, as well as institutional, social and economic policies.
Colombia also celebrated several centenaries in 2020 of emblematic people in the artistic and cultural environment of the country, and participation in Madrid’s Book Fair will be an opportunity to shine a light on the life and work of Manuel Zapata Olivella, Alejandro Obregón, Enrique Grau, Edgar Negret, Manuel Humberto Rodríguez, Nereo López, Lucy Tejada and Cecilia Porras.
Queen Letizia is a well known bibliophile, and she is not the only one in the family with this passion either. While both of their daughters, Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofia are rumoured to be avid readers, which became clear when they joined the national virtual reading of Cervantes’s Don Quijote at the beginning of the global shutdown, it is King Felipe who has always made clear his love for books. So much so that one of the engagement gifts that then Letizia Ortiz gave the then Prince of Asturias was an 1850 edition of “El doncel de don Enrique el doliente”, a Medieval chivalry novel.
