From Byung-Chul Han to Irene Vallejo or Harari: the essay takes off as a guide in a changing and uncertain present

The world, for the publishing industry, is divided into two parts: fiction and non-fiction (although sometimes the borders between the two are porous and controversial).

Non-fiction is a mixed bag where you can find manuals to make extraordinary

, compilations of Pilates exercises, Asturian gastronomy cookbooks, biographies of

or botanical guides.

But the genre of the essay is also framed there, which reflects on the real world (at least the vast majority of the time, because, although rare, there are also fictional essays, such as

by Jorge Luis Borges) .

Although the essay occupies a minority position within this taxonomy, there are reasons to think that it is in accordance with the

or spirit of the contemporary time, in the same way that the theater connects in a profound way with the Spanish Golden Age, poetry with the first half of the 20th or the novel with the second.

The trickle of great

in the genre encourages publishers to try their luck.

Non-fiction advances along multiple paths that are facilitated by contemporaneity.

“Individualism favors the proliferation of books that tell the experience of famous people;

the dignity of many professions favors the appearance of all kinds of manuals (psychology, gastronomy, etc.);

the implosion of information and the consequent disorder in knowledge favors analysis and synthesis books, general or particular, whether sociology or self-help”, lists Joaquín Palau, editor together with his son Álvaro de Arpa, specializing in non-fiction .

Although this apparent diversity hides a common core: “Formally”, adds Palau, “they intend something similar: to help put ideas and heads in order”.

The interest in the essay may have roots in the need to obtain truthful information, when 'fake news' proliferates, and in greater depth, given the superficiality with which many topics are treated.

Alvaro Manso, spokesman for CEGAL

In an extremely changing and uncertain present, the essay is a guide to understand what happens to us and what happens in the world.

At the same time, the debate on current affairs has been intensified by the flow of information that is shared on social networks, the news that is spread, the discussions that are generated, often virulent.

The interest in the situation is remarkable when there are multiple channels to discuss it.

We need information, knowledge, explanations, new approaches.

Sometimes we read to explain what we think a priori, to load ourselves with reasons to defend it.

Other times we seek the truth, if there is such a thing.

“The interest in the essay may have roots in the need to obtain truthful information, when

, and in greater depth, given the superficiality with which many topics are dealt with”, says Álvaro Manso, spokesman for the Spanish Confederation of Guilds and Associations of Booksellers (Cegal).

In this search for an explanation of what we are experiencing, the bookseller frames the success of the work of philosophers such as Byung-Chul Han. an era in which there is a certain cult of productivity: reading fiction or poetry, for many, would be a waste of time, a mere delight of the senses, while reading non-fiction can efficiently provide useful information: provide us with cultural capital.

As for the edition, according to the latest data collected by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), in 2019, 41% of the 64,154 titles published in Spain were framed within the category of literature.

The remaining 59% is dominated by non-fiction genres.

Regarding sales for the same year, the Federation of Publishers Guilds declares 20.5% for literature and 22% for the sum of the categories of scientific and technical books, social sciences and humanities and general popularization. .

However, when readers were asked in a Cegal survey in 2020 about the last literary book they had read, only 4.6% of them answered an essay, compared to 93% who answered a novel.

Conclusion: Non-fiction in general can rival fiction in volume and sales,

The essayist Byung-Chul Han in a still from Isabella Gresser's documentary 'The Tired Society: Byung-Chul Han in Seoul and Berlin', from 2015.

Interactions between the essay and the world

“There is a feedback between the essays that are published and reality”, says Miguel Aguilar, editor of Taurus and Debate, “we editors detect what topics are of interest, what worries society;

but conversely, there are essays that greatly influence public debate”.

He refers to books such as

(Fund for Economic Culture), by Thomas Piketty,

(Siruela) by María Elvira Roca Barea or

(first in Turner, now in Alfaguara), by Sergio del Molino.

Through texts like these, a great social debate was generated around issues such as economic inequality, the conquest of America or the complex relationships between the rural and urban worlds.

Other essays that have achieved great sales success in recent seasons are

(Siruela), by Irene Vallejo, or the

world

(Debate), by Yuval Noah Harari.

The reflections on existence made by Juan Luis Arsuaga and Juan José Millás in

(Alfaguara), is one of the last best-selling.

“We are publishing more and more nonfiction books in general and essays in particular, in various collections,” says Ofelia Grande, director of Siruela, where two of the latest great successes of the genre were published, those by Vallejo and Roca Barea.

How do you get a book that deals with a subject as specialized as the ancient history of books,

, sell more than 400,000 copies in almost 50 editions?

“We weren't expecting any of our latest hits, we knew they were good books, but we released them with normal print runs,” he explains.

But suddenly, even with a pandemic in between, the stars align.

“First, Vallejo's book has a great literary quality”, explains the editor, “second, it is a book that does not teach you like a cold professor, but rather accompanies you in the discovery (they have called it an “adventure essay”) , and, third, the personality of the author, so hard-working, so kind, so willing, has also helped a lot”.

Historical events such as the financial crisis that broke out in 2008, the political cycle that began in 15-M, the problem of climate change, the rise of feminism, Brexit, the rise of the extreme right, the technological threat, the migration crisis and , in short, the feeling that civilization is in suspense "has put many things into question again and old and new contradictions have been awakened," says Daniel Moreno, editor of Captain Swing.

This scenario has meant a revitalization of a type of essay that, both directly and indirectly, has been attached to the present: the demand for more information-knowledge and a more global vision in this regard have progressively increased.

I believe that the essay is in a better position to deal with them than fiction, where questions prevail more”.

The essay is in a better position to meet the demand for information and knowledge than fiction, where questions prevail

Daniel Moreno, editor of Captain Swing

Although the novel continues to be the most widely accepted genre, it is frequently contaminated by reality (essay-novel, self-fiction, etc.), as can be seen in the successful works of Emmanuel Carrère, winner of the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature last year, while essay publishers, whether from large publishing groups or independents, are in good health.

Within the first category are labels such as Taurus, Debate, Paidós, Crítica, Península, or Ariel;

in the second, Captain Swing, Harp, Pumpkin Seeds, Tin Sheet, Errata Naturae or the long-lived Akal, who turns 50.

Some of those cited combine essay and narrative.

There are also well-received publishers focused on literary journalism, another way of turning reality into letters, such as Libros del KO or Círculo de Tiza.

Frequently,

Topics appear that become fashionable and take over the shelves, such as feminism, climate change or mental health, until boredom is reached, the bubble bursts and something else is changed: this is how capitalism works.

At the moment, political matters or those related to the history or nature of Spain are well received.

Juan José Millás and Juan Luis Arsuaga, authors of 'The death told by a sapiens to a neanderthal' (Alfaguara).Sofía Moro

“The essay has acquired relevance: it is a protean label where we put almost everything, from journalism to philosophy through dissemination or memoirs, but that the common reader begins to identify with a type of narrative book with a very free structure, whose main characteristic is that almost never can be adapted to the cinema”, explains the writer Sergio del Molino.

For the author of

, success may have to do with a world "oversaturated with series, most of which are diegetically much more attractive and effective than canonical novels", in which the essay offers a literary experience that cannot be translated into another language.

It could be said that there is a reader profile that satisfies its longing for fiction through audiovisual platforms and that, when it comes to reading, it prefers essays.

A marked trend is the essay that is no longer impersonal, that no longer looks like a manual or a textbook, but a text in which the author is involved with his own perceptions, with his own biography in tow, texts in which many times the seams of the book are appreciated, the

, in which the author travels, interviews, doubts, reflects from his own point of view.

The majestic plural already sounds cumbersome: the things that are told are told by a certain person, who is her and her circumstance.

"In this sense, there is a very good Anglo-Saxon school that influences Spanish and European writers," says Miguel Aguilar, "that the essays have that personal component makes readers empathize and reading becomes more bearable."

We not only want to see reality, but filtered through a concrete subjectivity.

It is not so different from what Michel de Montaigne wrote in the Renaissance, who is said to have invented the genre locked in the tower of his own castle: “I want to be seen in my simple, natural and ordinary form, without containment or artifice, since I am the object of my book”.

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