The Snow Girl’ by bestselling author Javier Castillo was released two days before Spain’s coronavirus lockdown began. And when his publisher took his 30-city tour online, the readers were waiting. (Sponsored)

All Those People Who Had Flocked to the Bookshops’

In an article at El Pais, Laura Fernandez writes about spotting Javier Castillo’s face, so easy on the eye, festooned with emoji—hearts, applause, smiley faces. It was his first online meetup to promote last month’s release of The Snow Girl, his latest and fourth book from Suma, an imprint of Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial. And that digital appearance gave new traction to a release that might otherwise have skidded right out of sight.

The event was born in the terrible crisis of a moment that has rocked Spain to its core.

Gonzalo Albert Bitaubé, literary director for both Suma Hispánica and Aguilar at PRH Grupo Editorial, points out that the new title had been released only two days before Spain’s government imposed one of the harshest lockdowns in Europe, a wrenching attempt to short-circuit transmission of the coronavirus COVID-19. That lockdown has been renewed twice and with such a grinding impact on daily life that a primetime show, Quarantine Diaries, is coming to Spanish television.

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