The map of here and there Hopscotch
“I don't know why I left, I ask myself a hundred times a day. I look at myself in the mirror of the narrow cabin and I don't recognize myself. I look like another Federico”. Lorca's arrival in New York aboard the RMS Olympic is the starting point of the map that Literary Adventures (company dedicated to cultural management) dedicated to the writer from Granada.
Each of the numbers marked on the Map they contain an appointment, a date and a place. They have achieved: one of the most important authors of Spanish literature turned into a delicate world map.
This is what **Mónica Vacas (economist) and Daniel Castillo (engineer) ** dedicate themselves to, turning our main authors and their works into maps of indescribable beauty (yes, we would hang them all on our walls) and of a more than remarkable documentary accuracy. This is what makes them unique: the perfect balance between aesthetics and data.
Lorca's New York
Lorca's map does not end here . Among the literary legend is a breakdown with the places that marked the poet's life during his stay in New York, such as Columbia University or Emilio Amero's workshop.
If we flip it over, series of photographs of the New York of the time they accompany the texts about Harlem, the Jewish cemetery or the Spanish's Coney Island. We are, moreover, Travelling through time , specifically New York in the 1920s.
And so we could continue with the streets of Victorian London in which Sherlock and Watson unraveled mysteries, life in the 19th century in Oviedo (sorry, Vetusta) of The Regent or the portrait of the Villa de Madrid by Benito Pérez Galdós.
No matter the pages and the pen of whoever gets in front of them: the Literary Adventures team achieves create the world map of the authors who have marked Universal Literature.
Poet in New York
“Moved by our passion for the great classics, we developed the Wits collection , based on the creation of literary maps in which the places mentioned in novels are located and contextualized”, says Mónica.
“The process begins with a very detailed reading of the book , in which we study and dissect the text in search of references of interest (geographical, literary, bibliographical...) . The next step is document all those references and decide which ones are going to be part of our edition", she details.
"Finally comes the graphic part (search for the most suitable map, restoration and intervention of the same and final design)”. We are talking about a minimum of two months of research for a “simple” map , worked on a single book.
The data, the dates, the places, are not the only ones that put us in context. Between our hands we find colors and fonts faithful to the historical style in which the work was created and worked on cartographies close to the time in which the plot takes place.
For example, Lorca's New York It is captured on a map of the city from 1929, a reproduction of the one contained in the guide for new students at Columbia University (where the poet was enrolled between 1929 and 1930).
“The map we use to London in the Sherlock Holmes novels it has a dense cartography in dark tones. By contrast, in London in Jane Austen's novels light and warm tones and the cartography of pure lines prevail”, specifies Mónica. This is noticeable in the result: we are before a 'historical' document but from today.
Sherlock Holmes's London
BEYOND PAPER
By getting one of the maps from the collection of Literary Adventures you will also be opening an access to a private website which includes a interactive map and the ebooks of the novels.
It is a hybrid map, of "a way of publishing in which paper and digital not only coexist, but also complement and enrich each other ; the web allows us to include the digital editions of the texts, contextualize each location, include images of the time and contrast past and present”, says Mónica.
Jane Austen Land
In addition, there are two authors, who from such informative overbooking, have become a travel guide (part of the collection Literary Landscapes ); It's about the Paul Auster's New York Trilogy and the magnanimous Hopscotch , of Cortazar, located in Buenos Aires . Don't worry, "these also include a 50x70 cm map, folded against the book and that can be detached to use if you go on a trip or if you want to use it as a decorative element," Monica reassures us.
Paul Auster's New York
Currently, Literary Adventures works with bohemian lights of Valle-Inclan Y The Miserables of victor hugo , which will be in bookstores in March.
For now, you can enjoy London in the novels of Jane Austen , Around the world in 80 days by Jules Verne , La Regenta by Leopoldo Alas Clarín , London in the novels of Sherlock Holmes , Yokai (the map of mythological Japan) or the Madrid of the novels of Benito Pérez Galdós.
You can find them on their website and also in conventional bookstores (La Central, La Buena Vida, La Sombra, La Fábrica, Cervantes y Compañía, Nakama/lib/, Panta Rhei... in Madrid; Malpaso, Casa Usher Libreters, Altair. .. in Barcelona) .
*Article published on January 17 and updated with video on January 30, 2018
Madrid by Benito Pérez Galdos
The map of here and there Hopscotch