Readings
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‘To illustrate?’ / ‘It has to do with ideas.’ / ‘Not to be mistaken with the word “drawing”.’ / ‘A designer is not necessarily an illustrator. An illustrator does not always use drawing in their work.’ / ‘They could use photography, collages, sculpture, typography.’ / ‘Illustrators are storytellers. The important thing is that they tell things.’ [read more] -
Letter to the Mayor of Vuitonia
I have just turned fifty and, after an exhaustive medical examination, I can say that my physical health is exceptional. My doctor even gave me a hug to congratulate me on what he believed a biochemical miracle. The unusual thing is that I do not take care of myself in the slightest… [read more] -
Dear readers, the three letters you will read below are a fragment of the extraordinary life of Mr Leonardo Perales Grau. I met him during the performance of Soothing the Soul in El Cabanyal. I was conducting a report and asked him what he thought of the show. Four hours later we were still leaning against the counter of an old tavern in the neighbourhood. [read more] -
Girls and boys, ladies and gentlemen. Good afternoon. First of all, thank you for coming to the presentation of this story. I especially want to thank the Juan Rulfo bookshop for having organised everything so well. Man’s landing on the Moon was preceded by an announcement from the President of the United States… [read more] -
We are presented with a book that, like few others, can be described as a choral work in the strictest sense of the word. Unlike other works, it is not a compilation of unrelated works brought together by a casual, temporary or stylistic nexus, something similar to the famous Mil mejores poesías de la lengua castellana (The Thousand Best Poems in the Spanish Language)… [read more] -
In Spain —let us not forget— political action with a progressive tendency is often weak, because it lacks originality; it is pure mimicry, which is no more than a mere stimulant of reaction. One could say that only reactive impulses work with some precision and energy in our social machine. [read more] -
Books we never made with Miguel Calatayud
Before we began publishing books —thirteen years ago—, I bought a small notebook in a stationary shop to write down all the titles that would form part of our future catalogue. This was probably the publishing house’s first purchase. It was a landscape notebook with lined paper like those used for accounting, and I still have it. [read more] -
Begoña and I got married in October 1988 and put our wedding list in the Railowsky Bookshop. We liked the name, we liked the image its promoters had chosen as the emblem, and we liked its books. We thought it would be a way of supporting this enthusiastic and courageous business… [read more] -
The first time I saw Genichiro Yagyu’s books was in the summer of 2003 when Vicente and Begoña, Media Vaca’s alma mater, returned from their first trip to Japan, as always, full of treasures found in local bookshops… [read more] -
I cannot remember the first time I saw Susanne’s illustrations, but I do recall that the first book of hers I bought was Als die Welt noch Jung war (When the Earth Was Still Young), by Jürg Schubiger, published in Spanish by Anaya in 1997. [read more] -
The Cuban illustrator Ajubel lived for many years in Valencia in the same building as the publishing house Media Vaca. On the very same day he moved to another flat, his friend and neighbour, the editor Vicente Ferrer, finally commissioned him to produce a book… [read more] -
Shinta Cho is not a place, and yet the word excursion seemed appropriate. I did not come to Shinta Cho as the traveller that apparently every reader has inside, but as a tourist who has only been able to contemplate partial and superficial aspects… [read more]
