Barcelona and Catalan literature will be special guests, and the club will be participating via the Ramon Llull Institute with a documentary among other features
The seventh edition of the Warsaw Book Fair begins on Thursday at the National Stadium of the Polish capital and will have the city of Barcelona and Catalan literature as special guests. That is why FC Barcelona, as a reference of the region, will be present in Warsaw via the Ramon Llull Institute, with which the club has a close relationship. The vice-president of Institutional and International Relations, Carles Vilarrubí, will represent FC Barcelona in the activities organized in this important cultural event. Vilarrubí, this evening, is invited to the Barça TV programme Hora B.
Barcelona is the guest of honour at the Warsaw Book Fair, having been declared a city of literature by UNESCO. Therefore, the Ramon Llull Institute has organized a series of activities regarding the Catalan literature, which will also participate in the Government of Catalonia.
Through the collaboration agreement of the Sport meets culture programme, FC Barcelona and the Ramon Llull Institute offer themed activities that will be a meeting point between culture and sport.
Among other things, the documentary of Josep Suñol ‘Un crit valent’ will be projected: with Polish subtitles, and later a roundtable will be introduced by Manel Forcano, director of the Ramon Llull institute, in which the following will take part: Carles Vilarrubí, Tomasz Wisniowsky, Warsaw-based sports journalist, and Jordi Puntí, one of ten writers who make up the Catalan delegation council with Sebastià Alzamora, Blanca Busquets, Jaume Cabré, Jenn Diaz, Rafel Nadal, Marc Pastor, Care Santos, Màrius Serra and Jordi Sierra i Fabra. At the fair, the official books of Barça, edited in Polish, will also be displayed.
The relationship between FC Barcelona and the Ramon Llull Institute began in 2012 a first cooperation agreement to promote the Catalan language and culture to the world through the organization of joint activities, and guided the names of Barça and Catalonia to the universities of Glasgow, Amsterdam and Paris-New Sorbonne, among others. This new agreement to participate in the Warsaw Book Fair is one more step to promote Catalan literature abroad through sport.
Literary competition of FCBEscola Warsaw
Poland is a country where FC Barcelona has one of its biggest followings, and its capital saw the inauguration of FCBEscola Warsaw in 2011, Barça’s first football school opened in Europe, which currently has over 650 youngsters. These circumstances make the Warsaw Book Fair a great opportunity to promote the Catalan culture through football, reaffirming ties between the values of sport and culture.
To mark this event, FC Barcelona has organized a literary contest involving children of the FCBEscola Warsaw junior category, with 12 teams and 150 players. There will be a jury which will select the best three works presented. The first prize will be a trip to Barcelona with an accompanying adult, a jersey and a book; the second will win a jersey, some boots and a book, and third place will gain a jersey and a book. On the evening of the 19th will see the award ceremony at the National Stadium in Warsaw, where the fair is held.
Comments from Carles Vilarrubí, vice-president of Institutional and International Relations:
“The documentary Josep Suñol: Un crit valent will be shown as part of this important international literary fair as we are fulfilling our desire to make the image of president Josep Suñol global and to be able to explain to the world the injustice which ended with his life, as well as the strong social and cultural foundations that the club had in those difficult years and the solidity of its current global presence.”