HarperCollins Christian Publishing has entered into a licensing agreement with the Spanish publishing house Editorial CLIE (Committee on Literature for Evangelical Churches).

With the exception of Spain, HarperCollins Christian Publishing will hold global print and distribution rights for the entire CLIE product catalog, including frontlist and backlist as well as future titles.

Located in Viladecavalls, Spain, a suburb of Barcelona, CLIE is well-known in the Spanish Christian world for publishing classic authors such as Charles Spurgeon, Matthew Henry, William MacDonald and Alfred Edershein. The agreement also includes licensing of the popular 1977 revised Reina-Valera Spanish Bible translation.

With one of the largest selections of Spanish reference materials for pastors and church leaders, CLIE will remain a separate imprint under HarperCollins Christian Publishing's international team, joining Grupo Nelson and Vida.

In the early 20th century, Samuel Vila began CLIE to share the gospel with the Spanish-speaking world. After the Spanish Civil War, when evangelical literature was totally forbidden under Spain's dictatorship, CLIE secretly continued printing and distributing books. Vila, who died at the age of 90, continued to operate CLIE in hiding until Christian ministries were again legalized in 1967.

"Throughout the course of my career, I have had the privilege to periodically work with the Vila family and see how their work has impacted pastors and leaders across Latin America," said Larry Downs, vice president and publisher of Grupo Nelson. "This new relationship allows HarperCollins Christian Publishing to showcase and provide the best Spanish-language resources for the church today."

Eliseo Vila, president of CLIE and son of Samuel Vila, added: "The three most important imprints of Christian literature in Spanish, Grupo Nelson, Vida and CLIE, working together under the umbrella of Harper Collins Christian Publishing, involve significant synergies that will result in major benefits for the entire Christian Spanish-speaking world. CLIE will focus efforts on the production of academic books, increase the number of titles available and speedy access to important works."

CLIE's current catalog features more than 200 products, and the company will resurrect some of the 2,000 titles that have been archived.

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