hyperDictionary of Hispanic Literature

From a conversation with Elena Molina

If we looked in bookstores or libraries, we would miss a hyperdictionary of Hispanic literature that covers the great variety of classic authors from Spain and Latin America. These are figures that, since the Golden Age, gave splendor to our language. The last editions of similar dictionaries are from 1984 and 1993. They are not easily found. There are also Dictionaries of Spanish authors and Dictionaries of Latin American authors or Dictionaries of authors by countries, but not an updated work, which includes the best of our literary history, including authors from both sides of the ocean.

An editorial background

For ten years Linkgua Ediciones, has gathered an editorial fund of classic Hispanic titles, supported by biographies of authors, synopses and active and passive bibliographies that can well serve as a starting point for the preparation of an authentic hyperDictionary of Hispanic Literature based, in addition, on contemporary techniques of digital publishing.

Hypertext critical editions

The hyperDictionary of Hispanic literature would digitally connect with each other numerous books out of print for more than thirty years, which are now part of our publishing collection. Titles such as Zafira , by Juan Francisco Manzano, and the Works of Tristán de Jesús Medina, are among them and would be referred to and annotated in the hyperDictionary.

This would also contain entries dedicated to titles and authors who originally wrote in Galician and Catalan; as is the case of Tirant lo Blanc.

And I would link the works in our catalog together through thematic entries, formed from critical notes, original analytical texts and keywords, contained in the works. So the hyperDictionary, in addition to being a reference text, would function as a critical edition of our catalog.

Presentation of the work

Given the magnitude of the project, the hyperDictionary of Hispanic Literature would have 2 volumes of more than 520 illustrated pages. The binding would be in hardcover and with elevation in sewn.

Unlike the usual dictionaries, the hyperdictionary would connect the contents edited by us to our digital critical device. Including along with definitions, links to other books, keywords, clarifications of archaisms and localisms, general chronology, bibliographic sheets, interactive maps, etc.

For this we would use the most advanced features offered by the digital format Epub 3 that allows:

Link ebooks together
Create links that point to specific passages of an ebook
and associate an editorial catalog of ebooks with a specific digital dictionary.

The hyperDictionary would have a printed and a digital edition, available in physical and virtual bookstores and would be a dynamic tool of Hispanism through the inclusion in its list of advisors and editors of the most prominent firms of Hispanic literature and academia. Also, being a reference work, it could be updated periodically incorporating new features and new technological features. The printed edition of the hyperDictionary would use QR codes to connect with the digital books referred to in it.

The hyperDictionary would initially be composed of a:

300 biographies
350 images
1500 synopsis
2000 keyword entries (mainly archaisms and localisms)
2500 links. The hyperDictionary would link to the 1400 ebooks of classic works in the Linkgua catalog and other critical works and texts available online.
2000 bibliographic records
And an interactive map that would include the places cited in the most relevant books in the catalog. See here an example: Don Quixote in Barcelona.

We presented this project to the aid of the Ministry of Culture and it was denied.

hyperDictionary of Hispanic Literature