The 2026 edition of Barcelona’s Literal book fair, a public-facing fair with a professional program, once again proved to be a carefully curated and uniquely international event among alternative book fairs.

By Olivia Snaije, Contributing Editor

Since 2014, the Barcelona-based KULT, a cooperative focused on publishing and promoting critical thinking, has each spring held a radical book fair called Literal. Between 12,000 and 18,000 people attend the two-day public book fair held in Fabra i Coats, an early 20th century factory that is now a municipal space dedicated to creative activities. In 2019, KULT members decided to launch LiteralPRO, which takes place two days before Literal, as a space for international publishers with similar catalogues to meet in a relaxed environment. The 2026 edition ran from May 21-24.

“From our experience dealing with Basque, Spanish, and Catalan publishers [during Literal], we thought there was potential in inviting international publishers to come together in a small, easy, space, not just to sell rights, but to develop synergies,” said Marc Garcés, who runs Tigre de Paper, a Catalan publisher and one of the founding members of KULT.  Since then, with financial backing from the Spanish Ministry of Culture, the City of Barcelona, and the Catalan regional government, LiteralPRO has been able to invite 15-20 international publishers and literary agents each year. Twenty additional publishers from Barcelona and around Spain come to meet with the international group in B2B meetings and networking sessions.

LiteralPRO also partners with the International Alliance of Independent Publishers, a network of 980 global publishers who support bibliodiversity. Its director, Laurence Hugues, told Publishing Perspectives that the Alliance proposes members whose catalogs align with LiteralPRO’s ethos, and also collaborate on certain roundtables featured in LiteralPRO’s program. LiteralPRO also recently partnered with Publishers for Palestine, which includes publishers such as Lux Éditeur in Québec and France, Marjin Kiri, in Indonesia, and Haymarket Books in the U.S. and U.K.

‘Issues That Are Urgent’

Myles Howard and Roísín Davis (also an agent at ROAM Agency), were in Barcelona for Haymarket.

“We are building a presence in Europe and connecting with publishers and booksellers,” said Howard, adding that they acquire books in Spanish. Based in Chicago, Haymarket publishes, among others, Arundhati Roy, Mohammed El-Kurd, and Naomi Klein. In the last 18 months the company has grown 25%, according to Howard, most likely due to the fact that Haymarket publishes books “about issues that are urgent.”

Müge Gürsoy Sökmen co-founded Istanbul-based Metis Publications in 1982. This is her second time at LiteralPRO. She told Publishing Perspectives that book fairs used to be exciting for her because “people used to truly discuss ideas and books,” but that a change came about in the 2000s, when “industry took over from craft.” LiteralPRO is useful to Sökmen, she said, because she meets people “off the grid.”

Sökmen, who co-chaired the committee that organized Turkey’s guest of honor program at the Frankfurt Buchmesse in 2008, said she now prefers to go to smaller events such as LiteralPRO. “I’m here to learn from younger, radical publishers from Spain or other countries who are are really thinking about issues,” she said.

Laura Peh was at LiteralPRO for the first time. Peh founded her children’s book publishing company, Cinnamon Art Stories in Singapore in 2020. She first focused on books on arts and culture that she felt should be given more attention in Singapore, shifting a few years later to underrepresented topics. Although it wasn’t a commercial decision, Peh said there was “a gap in the market for topics that are not mainstream.”

At the Sharjah Publishers Conference Peh also discovered children’s books in Arabic, and began importing them to Singapore where she says 15%-20% of the population, mostly Malay, is Muslim. “A younger generation of parents want their children to learn Arabic,” she said.

With the Palestinian Tamer Institute, Peh co-edited The Donkey who carried the War on her Back, by Hooda Al Shawa and illustrated by Sienny Septibella. The book was selected for the White Ravens 2025 list, which features notable new children’s and YA books published in 40 languages.

Peh was also present in the World Lounge in Bologna in 2025, but said she  enjoyed LiteralPRO too because it helped her connect with publishers she hadn’t met before, and finds that at smaller events “the discussions are longer and more focused.” At LiteralPRO Peh and Mohamed El-Baaly, of the Cairo-based Sefsafa Culture & Publishing discussed co-publishing books together.

El-Baaly, who founded his publishing company in 2009 was pleased to come to LiteralPRO following the postponement of a number of book fairs in the Gulf this spring. El-Baaly describes Sefsafa as a progressive publisher interested in “good literature no matter what the subject. For example, we publish LGBTQ+ books although the topic is not a mainstay of our catalogue.”

Roughly 70% of Sefsafa’s books are in translation, El-Baaly said, adding that he tries to publish “smaller” languages from around the globe, in direct translation whenever possible. He agrees that small fairs can be useful, adding that all meetings can be frutiful, with “proper follow-up.” El-Baaly has travelled each year since 2012 to the Frankfurt Buchmesse and usually attends one other international fair in addition to those in the Arab world.

Laura Di Pietro flew to Barcelona from Rio de Janeiro. She founded Editora Tabla with Ana Cartaxo in 2020. Their objective, said Di Pietro, is to develop underrepresented literatures in Brazil by building bridges on a South-South axis.

Tabla mainly publishes authors from the Middle East and North Africa and from the diaspora. Di Pietro also collaborated with the Tamer Institute to publish Nâo vou escrever poesia e outros textos (I won’t write poetry and other texts), a collection of writing translated by Laura Borges to Portuguese with drawings by children from Gaza. Tabla collaborated with 18 other Brazilian publishers with all benefits reverting to the Tamer Institute.

In Brazil “there’s a movement that is tired of Western narratives and is searching for other stories,” said Di Pietro. “We would like to break these hegemonic narratives and show there is diversity in the Arab world too.” In these difficult economic times, she added, “we realized you can’t just publish a book.” Rather, the Tabla team does work around each book—organizing conferences, classes, and book clubs with special guests and often collaborates with public schools.

Two professional panels were held during LiteralPRO; the first focused on the role of publishing houses in promoting feminist, activist, and resistance-oriented translations, with professor of translation studies Olga Castro, literary translator and researcher Joan Ferrarons, and translator and essayist Simona Škrabec. The panel was moderated by translator Ángel Castelló,

The second panel adressed cultural decisions, market structures, and possible futures shaping independent publishing between Latin America and Spain. Alejandro Dujovne, an Argentinian sociologist specialized in publishing markets and book policies in Latin America spoke with Francisco Llorca, a Barcelona-based historian, bookseller and publisher of Las Afueras. The panel was moderated by Lucía Campanella Casas, who researches comparative literature and culture, translation and politics.

‘Quality’

When Literal opened to the public on May 23, crowds snaked around the building and stands manned by publishers selling their books as they waited to get into events such as a talk between Israeli historian and social activist Illan Pappe (published by Haymarket and Tabla) with the Palestinian journalist Mariam Barghouti.

While there are a number of radical and anarchist book fairs held in the U.K. and around the world, most of them cater to a local audience. “To my knowledge, at least in Europe, there are no others with Literal’s scope,” said Laurence Hugues. Hugues’ International Alliance of Independent Publishers runs the yearly Babelica, an online book fair for exchange, debate, and rights sales among independent global publishers. The 2026 edition will be around the theme of “Resistance and hope”.

Last year, a new event for international publishers focusing on non-fiction was also held in Barcelona, doubtless inspired by Literal. READ, organized by the Radical Books coop is on a much larger scale than LiteralPRO with public events held in the evening, but without the presence of publishers selling books at stands.

For Marc Garcés, LiteralPRO and Literal are “not about quantity, but quality.”