The latest addition to my website is Max Besora‘s Aventures i desventures de l’insòlit i admirable Joan Orpí, conquistador i fundador de la Nova Catalunya (Adventures and Misadventures of the Extraordinary and Admirable Joan Orpí). This is a wonderful, post-modern novel about the very real Joan Orpí who founded New Barcelona (now Barcelona), Venezuela. While there is a real book about him, this story is based on a tale told by a captain at the Siege of Barcelona and written down by a soldier and found by our narrator. Joan is a naive young Catalan who has a host of improbable and, at times anachronistic adventures, before ending up in what is now Venezuela, where he becomes governor of the city he has founded. However, his adventures are not over. It is very witty, very post-modern and very clever, with an unreliable narrator, anachronisms, improbable tales and parody everywhere.