Malaga book fair: more stalls, international authors and new venue

This year's Feria del Libro de Málaga (Malaga book fair) will feature 71 stalls along the Paseo del Parque. To understand the scale of this event it is enough to say that there were only 29 stalls over a decade ago. This makes 2026 the golden age of the fair, with the largest number of booksellers, publishers and participating institutions in the event's history.

The book fair is growing not only in size but also in ambition, with international authors featured in the programme, among them Irvine Welsh, Alan Hollinghurst and Martín Caparrós. This year, the organisers (Asociación Feria del Libro de Málaga, the city council and main sponsor Unicaja foundation) are making an important move to the Eduardo Ocón venue in the Malaga promenade park.

Malaga-born writer Esther García Llovet will inaugurate the 55th Feria del Libro on 30 April. The new venue space brings the fair closer to the sea, to which the poster, designed by Santa Rita in homage to the 100-year anniversary of the Litoral magazine, alludes. The magazine was an emblem of the Generation of '27, comprising a group of poets who rose to prominence between 1923 and 1927.

The programme of the event, which ends on 10 May, features around 500 authors from all genres. "From high literature to major publishing phenomena, from essays to popular fiction, from philosophical reflection to new forms of contemporary creation," fair content director Txema Martín says.

Broadly speaking, the programme includes three Premios Nacionales winners (for literature, narrative and poetry) and winners of the Planeta, Nadal, Alfaguara, Herralde and Ortega y Gasset prizes. The list of must-see events features world-renowned names such as Irvine Welsh (author of the iconic Trainspotting, 9 May at the Centro Andaluz de las Letras, also known as CAL), Alan Hollinghurst (winner of the Booker Prize, 8 May at the CAL) and Martín Caparrós (May 8), and Spanish authors María Dueñas (May 9, Eduardo Ocón), Lorenzo Silva (30 April, Eduardo Ocón), Bernardo Atxaga (1 May, Eduardo Ocón) and Andrés Neuman (9 May).

The city will host a range of notable creators, including Aroa Moreno Durán, poet Chantall Maillard, journalists Vicente Vallés and Marta Robles, art historian Guillermo de Osma, philosopher Elsa Punset, presenter and actor Christian Gálvez, acting coach Cristina Rota, digital content creator Amarna Miller and guitarist and founder of the legendary band Dover, Amparo Llanos, among others. Alfredo Taján, Vicente Luis Mora, Isabel Bono, Abraham Gragera: the list goes on.

The 2026 book fair award will highlight poetry through Irreconciliable - an event poets Violeta Niebla and Ángelo Nestore have designed to challenge the ways of expressing and presenting the genre.

Reader Con - the event for young adults featuring niche literature focused on romance and fantasy - also makes a return this year. Following last year's success, the event takes place on the final two days of the book fair (9 and 10 May) with 12 authors, including Alina Not, Raquel Tirado, Arantxa Comes, Andrea Longarela, Alexandra Roma, María Vaquero and Eva López.

The presentation of the event took place at the city hall, with the mayor as host. The number of sponsors is growing: in addition to the city council's collaboration and the main sponsorship from the Unicaja foundation, the fair has also attracted support from Victoria beers, Hyundai, Famadesa and Arteico, as well as the participation of the provincial authority, the regional government, the International University of Andalucía, Malaga University and Centro Andaluz de las Letras. Pending final updates, the budget this year has grown from 150,000 to nearly 200,000 euros.

"The park allows us to keep adding stalls," director of the fair Manuel Iborra says. This has previously been impossible due to the limited space at other locations such as La Merced, La Marina and even Muelle Uno. This is the third year since the fair returned to the park and the organisers have no intention of moving.

"The stars are aligned for us and we may well have the third-best book fair in Spain," Iborra states.