Expatica news

Soundbites for bookworms

16 January 2008

MADRID – You’re in a bookshop browsing through the new titles and suddenly the bookshelves start telling you about the books and their authors: this surreal scenario is not dissimilar to www.conocerelautor.com – a sort of literary YouTube, with two-minute videos in which writers explain their work. "It’s not about making creative videos, but rather telling the camera about their work, a bit like a talking bust," explains Pablo Sánchez, one of the four founding partners.

The Spanish language version has 60 native writers signed up and works in a similar way to those developed in the UK and United States, where the 1,400 videos available have already been downloaded two million times.

The Spanish portal – which also includes English and American writers – was launched in September and plans to host 500 Spanish writers by the end of 2008. Those with videos already on the portal include Lorenzo Silva, Fernando Marías, Rafa Reich, Tiziano Terzani (his son Folco speaks on his behalf), Paulo Coelho and Leopoldo Alas.

[Copyright EL PAÍS 2008]

Subject: Spanish news