LIBER 2023 to pay tribute to the editor Joaquín Sabaté

The International Book Fair, LIBER 2023 will play tribute to Joaquín Sabaté, founder of Ediciones Urano. With this award the book sector wishes to recognise his long career and leadership at the helm of this publishing house.

In 1983 Joaquin Sabaté launched Ediciones Urano in Barcelona with a small group of friends with extensive experience in the publishing world, with the aim of spreading knowledge through books. Sabaté would become CEO of the company, a position he held until 2005, when he became its president. 

With a degree in Economics from the Catholic University of Chile and a PADE (Programme of Senior Business Management) from IESE, Sabaté was born in the city of Santiago de Chile in 1934. His parents, with Catalan roots, instilled in him an interest in reading from an early age, and he never lost touch with the social and cultural movements that were taking shape on the peninsula. In the 1960s, on his honeymoon, he decided to settle in Barcelona and share experiences with some of the most emblematic literary figures of the time.

Once in Spain, and while studying at the University of Navarra Business School, he joined the Pomaire publishing house as Financial Director, with the aim of assisting in its international expansion. Sabaté would end up being one of the company's shareholders.

After the disappearance of this publishing house, he embarked on one of his best adventures with the creation of Ediciones Urano. Enamoured with the world of books and with strong links to the Latin American market, he based the strategy of the emerging publishing house on structuring rapid growth in these markets, forming strong alliances with large publishing houses such as EMECE editores (a company he was also in charge of expanding in Spain).

Ediciones Urano, with more than 4,000 titles, was one of the first publishing houses to publish books on personal growth, self-help and natural health. It introduced the first books on subjects such as the Alexander technique, aromatherapy, rolfing, and reflexology, among others, achieving notable success with the publication of Harvey and Marilyn Diamond’s book Fit for Life.

With more than 200 employees, the publishing group, with its headquarters in Spain, is distributed in the United States and most of Latin America, and has its own offices in Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Uruguay, Peru, Colombia and the United States.

After four decades, Ediciones Urano has a wide range of products through different imprints that allow it to diversify and satisfy the different needs of its loyal readers. Its imprints include Titania, aimed at romance novels; Umbriel, which focuses on adult fiction  (where the publication of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code stands out); Empresa Activa, dedicated to business management (with the bestsellers Spencer Johnson's Who Moved My Cheese? and Good Luck by Álex Rovira and Fernando Trías de Bes); Tendencias, which publishes non-fiction works on current issues; Puck, aimed at young people; Kepler, a space for astrology and esotericism; and Indicios, which deals with historical issues and biographies.

The Publishing group also owns Books4Pocket to promote paperbacks, Entramat for the publication of Catalan-language works and Urano Publishing for its English-language editions. And now, on the occasion of its 40th birthday, it has added a new publishing imprint to its catalogue, Letras de Plata, which will be dedicated exclusively to the most literary international fiction.

Always innovative, Ediciones Urano's greatest commitment has come from the development of its own technology and the commercialisation of digital content, converting its entire publishing collection to the new formats in use: digital, audio and paper. What’s more, it also offers a wide range of online courses, available on different platforms, including its own network: Amabook.

The delivery of this award will take place on 5 October as part of the activities of the International Book Fair, LIBER 2023, which this year is being held at IFEMA MADRID, in an event to be held at the Fundación Ortega-Marañón. In the same ceremony, awards will also be presented for the best adaptation of a literary work and for the promotion of reading in the media, which have been awarded respectively to ‘The Patients of Dr Garcia’ (Los pacientes del doctor García) and to the supplement ‘La Lectura’ in El Mundo. In addition, the LIBER award will be presented to the best initiative for the Promotion of Reading in Libraries open to the public, awarded to Madrid City Council's Network of Public Libraries, while the Boiareu Ginesta award for Bookseller of the Year will be awarded to Casa del Libro on Gran Via in Madrid on its centenary. The prize will also be awarded to the most outstanding Spanish-language author, this year's winner being Elvira Lindo.

About LIBER 2023

Organised by IFEMA MADRID and promoted by the Spanish Association of Publishers Guilds, LIBER 2023 is sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and Sport, the Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade (ICEX), the Community of  Madrid, Madrid City Council and the Spanish Reproduction Rights Centre (CEDRO). It also benefits from the collaboration of Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) and the Madrid Publishers’ Guild.