Zenda

Zenda is a Spanish literary publication that began its journey in April 2016 thanks to the impulse of a group of author friends led by the writer and academic Arturo Pérez-Reverte. In this digital space, among many other authors, the Spanish Javier Marías, Luis Mateo Díez, José María Merino and Almudena Grandes, the Mexicans Élmer Mendoza and Xavier Velasco, the Argentine Jorge Fernández Díaz and the Puerto Rican Mayra participate. Santos-Febres.This digital project has as its motto “authors, books and company”. In Zenda's presentation text, its editor and co-founder, Arturo Pérez-Reverte, explains that the idea of ​​the website “arose in a conversation between several writer friends. At a time when culture and books are going through difficult times, why not create our own, free, independent place, where we can meet as if it were a public space, each person with their books, their comments or whatever they are able to contribute, together with reviews of interesting books, happy readings, opinion columns, blogs, recommendations, news and interviews? ask but about books and literature, without good or bad, without labels or ideologies? A place from which to even direct readers to the book magazines and cultural supplements of the main Spanish and American newspapers? Zenda also aims to be a meeting point for "readers, journalists, editors, writers, literary agents, new authors, booksellers and all those interested in the world of Hispanic American literature." The writer, journalist and social media expert Leandro Pérez is Zenda's content coordinator. Zenda aims to occupy a space in the literary world in the Spanish language. According to Pérez-Reverte, “500 million Spanish speakers give a lot of themselves. The territory is immense.” Regarding the name of the project, its editor also offers the keys in the presentation text: “A clear and easy-to-retain name was needed, with the appropriate bookish flavor. In a coffee chat, among some of us, we looked for a name for that place, and we decided to put ourselves under the patronage of a mythical title, with beautiful literary and cinematographic resonance: the novel The Prisoner of Zenda, by Anthony Hope. It is not, of course, the most perfect novel in the world; but it is an exciting adventure, an old-fashioned serial, in the best sense of the term, that cannot help but be read with a grateful and knowing smile. Ones that, read at the right time, like The Count of Monte Cristo or Treasure Island, make readers for life. Zenda, therefore, Authors, books & company, is the name of this territory of books and friends. Zenda wants to become “a powerful space made available to both the readers and the authors who participate in it, so that they can use it as a free platform for the dissemination of their work, as a means to make their work visible and, when they wish, as a vehicle to present their comments, articles or personal opinions.”