The etymology of anagram brings us to the French anagramme, which comes from the Latin anagramma. Anagram is a modification to the order of the letters that make up a word, generating a different word.
Take the case of the word “cat. ” If we transpose the letters, changing them, we can form other terms, such as “drop” or “toga”. Thus, “cat”, “drop” and “toga” are anagrams: words that are written with the same letters, but located in a different way.
The expressions can also result in anagrams. “Crazy author”, for example, is an anagram of “Colo Taurus”. Anagrams can appear in different languages: “An Smith” is anagram of “This Man”.
It is curious that the anagram concept itself allows creating anagrams such as “frog range” or “lean ana”. It should be noted that anagrams are often used in word games and puzzles as a hobby, since they require the use of creativity and memory for their training. Good anagram management requires an extensive vocabulary.
As can be seen in all the previous examples, it is not a requirement of the anagram that the words have some kind of relationship regarding their semantics or their grammar, although this does not mean that they cannot exist by mere coincidence. It is said that “Voltaire”, a pseudonym for the famous writer, philosopher and historian of French origin, emerged as an anagram of his surname, Arouet, in the expression ” Arouet l e j eune” (Arouet, the young man), taking only the “L” and “j” of the remaining two words and considering the “u” as a “v”, and the “j” as an “i”.
Anagrama, on the other hand, is the name of a publishing house created in 1969 in the Spanish city of Barcelona. Its founder was Jorge Herralde, renowned editor and writer.
Thanks to Herralde’s work, many authors from different languages have been able to bring their works closer to Spanish-speaking readers. His career in the publishing world has been awarded on more than one occasion by organizations from various countries. With respect to his literary legacy as an author, he has published about a dozen books in which he often delves into his editorial work. His wife, Eulalia Lali Gubern, was a bookseller and translator.
The Editorial Anagrama has published books by great authors from around the world, such as Vladimir Nabokov, Norman Mailer, Sergio Pitol, Ricardo Piglia, Enrique Vila-Matas, Thomas Bernhard, Alvaro Pombo and Javier Marias. The company, on the other hand, awards two distinctions each year to recognize the quality of unpublished works: the Herralde Novel Prize and the Anagrama Essay Prize.
Throughout the history of this publishing house, which covers approximately half a century, its book catalog has exceeded three thousand, and among them are many of today’s most important essay and narrative titles, although it goes without saying that not all authors are fortunate to publish in this house, and therefore competition is necessary.
Anagrama has several collections, with different themes, and the most significant are the following:
* Hispanic narratives, where Spanish-speaking fiction writers are grouped, such as Roberto Bolaño, Vera Giaconi, Álvaro Pombo, Marta Sanz, Ricardo Piglia, Mariana Enriquez, Javier Tomeo, Sara Mesa, Sergio Pitol, Esther García Llovet and, in the beginning of their careers, Antonio Soler and Javier Marías;
* Narrative Panorama, which focuses on the fiction of foreign authors such as Cahterine Millet, Vladimir Nabokov, Pauline Dreyfus, Thomas Bernhard, Yasmina Reza, Patrick Modiano, Jean Echenoz, Ian McEwan, Christie Bridget, Norman Mailer, Linda Rosenkrantz, Albert Cohen, Sara Waters, Martin Amis, Roberto Calasso and Alessandro Baricco;
* Arguments, with essays of various kinds, prepared by contemporary writers, philosophers and thinkers, among which we can highlight Graciela Speranza, Anselm Jappe, Julia Cagé, Guy Debord, Patricia Soley-Beltran, Greil Marcus and Hans Magnus Enzensberger.
