If something stood out in the character of Aníbal Cristobo (Lanús, Argentina, 1971 – Barcelona, 2026), it was enthusiasm. , excessive, which was impossible to resist. In 2012, when he started the Kriller71 publishing house, he became possessed by it: his personal situation – he worked as a receptionist at night and had just become a father – certainly did not seem the most conducive to devoting himself to independent poetry publishing in the midst of an economic crisis. But Aníbal needed to share that enthusiasm of his, socialize it, see it exist. And boy did he do it. Anyone who lived through those first years of Kriller – 71 gradually fell from the popular name, although not from the official one – when it was Aníbal who sent the books to readers or left them on deposit in a few bookstores, will remember that feeling of a secret party that was, at the same time, a conspiracy against the poetry that was usually read and written around here.
That enthusiasm, despite everything, would not have gone very far if Aníbal had not also had great generosity, together with a certain gift for detecting similar sensibilities. If one reviews the prologues, translations, notes or credits pages of , it will be easy to see that Aníbal always worked together: with partners, with friends, with spontaneous or long-term collaborators; with passionate subscribers and readers who, suddenly, became authors or translators of the house; and even with his daughter, Marina, who accompanied him to all the fairs and presentations that were necessary.
In this way, the enthusiasm and criticism of the hierarchies were allied with necessity, because almost no one was paid at Kriller, starting with Aníbal himself, who continued to chain more or less precarious jobs that had nothing to do with literature. Thus, from that fragility of solidarity, somewhat amateurish but always jovial, Kriller put together a catalog that discredits that of other much better financed (and infinitely more conformist) publishers: Iosif Brodsky, Kenneth Koch, , , Angélica Freitas, , Jean Daive, Arnaldo Antunes, , Charles Reznikoff, James Tate, Edoardo Sanguineti, Fernanda García Lao, …
There was, in any case, another Hannibal, more taciturn, darker, who perhaps became more pronounced in recent years. Because precariousness—no matter how much it is often decorated in the cultural sector—is terrifying when it extends over time and seems to become endless. Hannibal experienced at least three types of painful precariousness. Kriller’s was, perhaps, the most visible, but also the one in which he found the most support: when in 2022 he decided to launch a crowdfunding to keep the publishing house afloat, the response was so vehement and generous that Aníbal regained much of his faith in the project.
In other precarious situations—work and housing—he had to fend for himself. During these last months, while his anxiety and depression worsened, his obsessions were exactly those: what would he do if he was fired from a job that, on the other hand, stressed him out and made him unhappy; What would you do when your rental contract ran out in a city, Barcelona,? And linked to both, as a bitter corollary, what would happen if the publishing house had to close.
It is likely that, in these days and weeks to come, tributes to Aníbal and Kriller71 will abound. Many will be simple and emotional, from the core of the people who loved him, who appreciated him as an agitator or who enjoyed his work. Without a doubt, some bookstores and festivals that supported it will also join in. It is even possible that we will receive some murmuring from the cultural institutions that, in general, ignored him. In any case, what no one should forget, beyond the gratitude we owe him, is a bitter truth, one that lays bare the simulacrum of the cultural system in which we operate: Aníbal Cristobo, that great editor, was killed by precariousness.
