Between utopias and dystopias in the third edition of the 42

More than 70 activities and 174 participants will make up the third edition of the 42, Barcelona Fantastic Genre Festival, an event that will take place from 8 to 12 November at Fabra i Coats: Fàbrica de Creació and whose commissioner is the writer Ricard Ruiz Garzón. Utopias and dystopias, the change in audiovisual horror and epic fantasy will be the main topics of debate at an event that will also have space to pay tribute to the great references of the fantastic genres.

From the long list of participants, we can mention international names such as Steven Erikson, Ada Hoffman, Brandon Sanderson (online), Ann Leckie, Tim Pratt, Wu Ming-Yi and Jorge Volpi. From the national scene we will find interventions by Marta Sanz, Remedios Zafra, Maite Ochotorena, Laura Fernández and David Rubín. And as for Catalan authors, there will be, among many others, Maite Carranza, Miquel de Palol, Màrius Serra, Martí Domínguez and Andreu Martín.

The main theme of the 42 will revolve around the future of humanity, through the different non-realistic literary genres, mostly focused on examining possible dystopian worlds. Likewise, the differences between literary and audiovisual horror will have their place with the exhibition dedicated to the literary side of the Sitges Festival and the presence of specialists on the subject. And the renewal of epic fantasy will also play a prominent role.

Other themes will be motherhood, feminism, death and immortality, and comics and illustration.

The 2023 festival will pay special attention to non-Western literature and, among many other proposals, it will be possible to discover first-hand and exclusively who is the author who goes by the pseudonym Stalker, who has so far published six works about the monsters of the cruellest Africa.

Another important event is the organisation of a literary route of fantastic genres that will go around the city centre visiting emblematic places because of their relationship with characters, works or authors of this genre.

There will be workshops and talks on manga, cyborgs and mechas, table games and video games, and cyberfeminism.

As part of the Barcelona Libraries Reading Action programme, activities have been organised for 500 secondary school pupils, who will visit the festival and take part in reading clubs and meetings with authors. They will also delve into the work Momo, by Michael Ende, and parallel activities will be organised with Mariana Enríquez, Inés Macpherson and Mar Bosch.

Tributes and Claims

As in every edition, the 42 will devote a part of the programme to paying tribute to great references of the fantastic genres, such as Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, Italo Calvino, E. A. Poe and H. P. Lovecraft. And also our classics, such as Jaume Fuster, the pioneer Elvira Augusta Lewi and the late Vicenç Pagès i Jordà. Immortal references such as Guilgamesh, One Thousand and One Nights, Star Trek and The Avengers will be vindicated.

A concert by the group Malalletra, with a repertoire of songs related to fantasy and science fiction, will bring five intense days to a close.

You can find the detailed programme in this link.

In the picture, the poster of this edition, the work of the illustrator Maria Picassó.