The Fuensaldaña Castle has once again become the main stage of the national Blacklladolid contest, whose fourth edition began yesterday and will continue until next Sunday with full capacity for all days. Literature and sex will become the protagonists of an event that will bring together some of the most important authors of the national and international scene, with César Pérez Gellida and Dolores Redondo, its promoters, as masters of ceremonies.
At its inauguration, the president of the Provincial Council of Valladolid, Conrado Íscar, stressed that the provincial institution contributes its “grain of sand” to make Blacklladolid a reality every year, because from the beginning it was considered that it could be a “success” and “Time has proven that it was right because it is a really interesting project”.
“And this would not have been possible without César Pérez-Gellida, Dolores Redondo and all our sponsors, in this important public-private collaboration,” stressed the provincial leader.
This first day also served to Blacklladolid Surprises Dolores Redondo With Lifetime Achievement Award and to thank her for her presence each year as patron of the competition.
Very excited, Dolores Redondo indicated that she already feels that Valladolid is her home. “The best thing that literature has given me has been the opportunity to meet great people in the field of culture,” he acknowledged, remembering all the people present at this event and all those who came to previous editions, who “make” the dream he had with César come true.
Statements that César Pérez-Gellida reinforced by concluding that this competition is a “dream come true”, since one day this “madness” came to their minds and they work to make it a reality in each edition, the organization emphasizes in a statement.
Mabel Lozano was in charge of starting the presentations of this fourth edition of Blacklladolid, with a conference in which she has focused her career in recent years on activism for women’s human rights around the world, highlighting in particular the denunciation of sexual exploitation.
In this regard, Lozano considered issues such as prostitution and indicated to this end that sex “It’s about pleasure, even if prostitution is about power.” The problem, he explained, is that people often don’t talk to their children about sex, about this “little pornographic film that is the cell phone, about how they should interact.”
“The question we have to ask ourselves is why we have normalized prostitution. We cannot normalize this and it happens: young people are prostituting themselves through pornography,” Lozano said.
After his thoughtful intervention, the hall of the Fuensaldaña Castle received Máximo Huerta, an author who spoke with his fellow writer Raquel Martos, presenter of this fourth edition. “I write from my maternal heritage. Because we didn’t have a library, but my grandmother and mother read a lot thanks to libraries and book rentals. That’s where my career began, but it was very difficult for me to call myself a writer because of that imposter syndrome that we all suffer a little bit from,” he said.
After this first day, Blacklladolid will receive Santi Balmes and Najat El Hachmi this Thursday.
