Literary manuscripts are accepted | Culture

History has been repeated hundreds of times. An aspiring writer finishes a book and sends it to his favorite publisher. Your favorite editorial doesn't answer. Send it to another publisher. And another. And another one. In the best case, you receive a rejection note. Or one that aims to give you hope: "We love what you write, but at this time we have no place for something like that." Or: "Your novel has a lot of sense of humor, but humor in Spain does not work." Some, damn and historical, as John Kennedy Toole, tired of receiving them, one day they got into the car, operated the key and let the carbon monoxide take them to the next world. Then, his story - that of suicide - was so striking, that his novel - very good - became the long seller international par excellence: The conjuing of the ceciuos. It has never been easy to publish without sponsors, but the latest news suggests that this is changing in these times in which the anonymous often has more likes than the recognized.

Raquel Taranilla (Barcelona, ​​37 years old) has won this year the prestigious Brief Library, which Seix Barral summons. I had previously published My body (The Lynx). He sent it to about 25 publishers; Only two answered. The first encouraged him; the second asked for time. He ended up publishing it. Later, it ended Night and ocean. "As if it were a kind of ritual, because I had read that it was prudent to do it on a website of novice writers, I went to the Intellectual Property Registry and registered my text," he says. And he continues: “I sent it to two people in the publishing world; I guess I was looking for advice on whether to hire an agent, whether to destroy my manuscript or the phone number of an editor willing to publish me. They never answered. I also sent it to a few publishers that publish texts that I like. No one ever answered me. A few days later, I sent it to the Short Library award and forgot about the book. Until one day I received the blessed call from [la editora de Seix Barral] Elena Ramirez. "

"Raquel's novel stood out throughout the process of screening copies for the prize, reaching a jury that was completely dazzled by its value," says Ramírez. The same thing happened, the editor Juan Cerezo confesses with Wasp season, by Elisa Ferrer (L’Alcúdia de Crespins, Valencia, 36 years old), the unknown winner of the Tusquets de Novela de 2019. "The members of the jury, who granted him the prize unanimously, wanted to underline the satisfaction that it was for them to find novels like that and discover a new author, with a future ahead," says Cerezo. Here is the point at which Carme Riera, the editor of Random House Literature, who discovered Íñigo Redondo and decided to turn it into the seal of the year of the year: her novel All this exists Going for the third edition. “It is not so much to search as it is. It is very difficult to find a manuscript like Íñigo's, but search, we search, ”he says.

Remember the afternoon of a weekend when did you start reading All this exists. “I was liking it so much that I thought it would be taken away. I was convinced that everyone had it and that the author was already receiving offers from other publishers. Convinced, ”he emphasizes. “When I arrived at the publishing house on Monday and told Claudio - López Lamadrid, who died in January - he gave me the green light and wrote an absolute love letter by email to Íñigo, thinking that he would have many suitors and that he had to enforce how much I liked the novel. He replied that I had not know how many candles to St. Pancrate because I did not think that these things were happening. No one else had written to him! ”He recalls. This is how the story of the first book that Riera, who has been in Random House Literature for three years, started directly. She has worked with the author editing the text and told her story to the press to try to convey the enthusiasm. Now they keep getting manuscripts in his name. Some bring them by hand, as in the Cliff publishing house that, after a while with the mailbox closed, has accepted them again.

The big labels usually have external readers who are dedicated to discard texts. It is not usual, as it happened in the case of Riera, that the publisher herself simply gives the manuscript. "In Tusquets we have external readers who make reports of those selected by our editor Iván Serrano, and in committee we decide which ones are worthwhile and I just read," says Cerezo. From these final readings, there have been novels by Ramón González, Daniel Ruiz, Eva Blanch and the most recent, Miguel Ángel Oeste, which will be published in the fall. There is always someone there, although sometimes it may not be the right someone. "I don't know if someone else would have been impacted like Iñigo's story," admits Riera