The subdelegate of the Government in A Coruña, María Rivas, took advantage of the Day of the Book to call on non-profit entities to attend the grants to strengthen the publishing industry that has just been convened by the Ministry of Culture and that can be requested until May 14. He did so during an event at the Hotel Bela de Fisterra, a hotel establishment that dedicates its rooms to works of universal literature and consecrated writers.
The establishment managed to make literature, to make books and their creators the guiding thread of the company’s own story, to which adds the claim of the environment, which leads to what in an enclave such as Fisterra had necessarily had to be linked to the sea, to the literature that speaks of the sea.
María Rivas, on her visit to the facilities of this literary hotel, which was also the first in the area to achieve the award of eco-sustainable establishment, recalled that in the last three years Galicia won five national Literature Awards: Xesús Fraga (2021) and Marilar Aleixandre (2022) in the category of Narrative; Ismael Ramos, national poetry prize xoven “Miguel Hernandez” (2022); Paula Carballeira in Dramatic Literature (2023) and Yolanda Castaño in Poetry (2023), which undoubtedly shows the great quality of the literary creation of our authors.
Precisely, Marilar Aleixandre, winner of the National Narrative Award in 2022, will be the protagonist of an act of homage by the Hotel Bela, which will dedicate her work to room Marea Viva, the only one of the 16 rooms that varies its theme and that is dedicated to a contemporary literary star that after staying in that room, is inspired, created and entertains with her work the hotel to endow that space with content, an act that will be attended by the underdelegate of the Government.
In addition to delving into the editorial creation and quality of the Galician writers, María Rivas took advantage of the event to point out that the cultural industries and businesses of Galicia entered 1.9 million euros in the first edition of the Xove Cultural Bond (2022), of which 817,917 euros corresponded to the province of A Coruña, which had 90 entities adhered. In 2023, he reported, 6,474 people benefited from this initiative, two out of three of whom were eligible to participate in this program.
The Government’s Xove Cultural Voucher will be available to young people who turn 18 in 2024 in the coming months, as the Ministry of Culture has not yet agreed on the date on which they can be applied for. In previous editions, the initiative was divided into three chapters to promote access to various cultural expressions.
In particular, it distributed 400 euros, of which half were for spending on living arts, cultural heritage and audiovisuals; 100 euros for cultural products in physical support such as books, magazines, press, video games or discs, and another 100 euros for digital consumptions, such as subscriptions to music platforms, audiobooks, digital press, online video games or download of podcasts, among others.
Rivas recalled that activities are also being developed within the framework of the Reading Promotion Plan 2021-2024, a program of the Ministry of Culture, through the General Directorate of the Book, which brings together a total of 302 creators in the 404 activities that will take place until June 14.
In the province of A Coruña this plan arrives, through the programs ‘Literary Encounters in the HEIs’ and ‘Reading the Caucasians’ to 9 institutes of the 30 that participate throughout Galicia in these initiatives.