Queen Letizia will meet with German Hispanists and Spanish teachers on Wednesday 19 at the Cervantes Institute in Frankfurt

The Cervantes Institute organises a wide-ranging cultural and academic programme as part of the Frankfurt Book Fair

photo_camera PHOTO/INSTITUTO CERVANTES - Luis García Montero, director of the Instituto Cervantes

The Cervantes Institute will be holding numerous cultural and academic activities next week in Frankfurt (Germany) as part of the 2022 Book Fair, in which Spain is the Guest of Honour. Queen Letizia will meet with German Hispanists and Spanish teachers at the Cervantes in the city, which will also host events with Irene Lozano and Dieter Ingenschay, among others. At the Fair, the Director of the Institute, Luis García Montero, will take part in three colloquiums: one on the economic power of Spanish, with the Vice-President Nadia Calviño and the Minister Miquel Iceta, and two literary meetings with the writers Antonio Muñoz Molina, Carlos Marzal and Raquel Lanseros.

Summary of the Institute's activities

After the official opening of the Fair (Tuesday 18 October) by the King and Queen of Spain and the German authorities, on the following day (Wednesday 19 October) Doña Letizia will attend the Cervantes Institute in Frankfurt, where she will hold a meeting with German Hispanists.

The event dedicated to scholars of Spanish culture will begin with a welcome address by the director of the institution, Luis García Montero. This will be followed by a round table discussion entitled 'Homage to German Hispanism', moderated by the veteran Dieter Ingenschay (1948), Emeritus Professor of Hispanic Literature at the Humboldt University of Berlin. The hispanists Danae Gallo González, Marco García García, Lena Hein, Marília Déa Jöhnk and Victoria del Valle will participate. 

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On the same Wednesday, Luis García Montero will hold a colloquium with the writer Antonio Muñoz Molina entitled "Beyond the borders of the imagination", which will be presented by Elvira Marco.

On Thursday 20, "Spanish and the economic power of language in the digital era" will be analysed in a round table discussion by the Minister of Culture and Sport, Miquel Iceta, and the Director of the Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero.

The meeting will be closed by the First Vice-President of the Government and Minister of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Nadia Calviño. The moderator will be Cristina Gallach, journalist and special commissioner for the Alliance for the New Language Economy of the Spanish Government.

The academic activity will return on Thursday to the Cervantes venue, which will host the round table "The role of literature in the Spanish language classroom", with Carmen Pastor, Academic Director of the Cervantes Institute. The debate is organised in collaboration with the German Association of Spanish Teachers (DSV).

Also at the Cervantes on the 20th, there will be a talk with three Spanish female illustrators whose works are on display in the exhibition "Ilustrad/AS". A look at female creation in avant-garde illustration, which is open to the public until 23 January. Sonia Pulido, María Hesse and Núria Tamarit will be in dialogue with the curator, Jakob Hoffmann.

The artistic activity also includes the exhibition " Photography Notes from the Past. José Ortiz Echagüe (1986-1980)", which brings together 100 images by the renowned Spanish photographer. It opens on Sunday 16 January and can be visited until 22 January at the Openvillen Rüsselsheim centre.

The Cervantes Centre will host the seminar " German Hispanism Seminar" on Thursday and Friday, in which numerous professors, writers and translators will take part. It will include lectures on topics such as "Languages, societies and cultures in Latin America", "Anthology of Spanish and Latin American poetry" and Ingenschay's lecture "Another history of Spanish literature".

On Friday 21 October, the director of the Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero, will be in dialogue at the Fair with two other renowned poets: Carlos Marzal and Raquel Lanseros, who will act as moderator. The round table is entitled " Poetry in times of intemperance".

Spanish independent cinema created between 2015 and 2020 has a place with the cycle " Overflowing Reality", a title that is a version of the official slogan of the Fair, "Overflowing Creativity". Organised by the Cervantes Institute, A/CE and the German Film Archive (DFF), it offers more than a dozen Spanish films that can be seen until 30 March. Venue: Frankfurt Film Museum (Filmmuseum).

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Literature and football

On Saturday 22nd, the heads of the Institute and Casa Árabe, Luis García Montero and Irene Lozano, will be holding a round table discussion on 'Literature and Football' at Cervantes, following the signing of a collaboration agreement between the two organisations.

This event is an appetizer for another meeting, this time a sporting one. In the afternoon, a football match will be played between the "Los Cervantinos" team, made up of Spanish writers and journalists, and the German team, made up of authors from Germany.

The Spanish team includes Nuria Labari, Enrique Ballester, Álex Grijelmo, Gabi Martínez, Pablo García Casado, Emilio Sánchez Mediavilla and Álex Prada, among others.

As is traditional at each edition of the Fair, the Kulturstiftung of the German Football Federation (DFB) organises a clash between representatives of the guest of honour country (in this case, Spain) and the national team, in an initiative that was presented last Tuesday at the Cervantes headquarters in Madrid.

All the events taking place at the Cervantes in Frankfurt will be streamed on the Cervantes Institute's Directo 1 and YouTube channels. Those taking place at the Fair will be available once the event is over.

Submitted by José Antonio Sierra, Hispanismo advisor.

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