tmn The latest addition to my website is Mercè Rodoreda‘s La mort i la primavera (Death in Spring). Though Rodoreda wrote this book at around the same time as she wrote La plaça del Diamant (UK: The Pigeon Girl; US: The Time of the Doves), it was not published till after her death. It is now … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Najat El Hachmi‘s L’últim patriarca (The Last Patriarch). Najat El Hachmi may not seem a Catalan name and it is not. El Hachmi was born in Morocco but her family moved to Catalonia when she was eight and Catalan was the language she learned to read and write … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Lluïsa Forrellad‘s Siempre en capilla [Always In The Chapel]. Forrellad wrote this in Spanish in 1953 (for which she won the Nadal Prize) and then did not write another novel for fifty-three years, her three later novels all appearing in Catalan. It tells the stories of three English … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jordi Puntí‘s Maletes perdudes (Lost Luggage). It tells the story of four half-brothers, each from a different country, who were unaware of each other’s existence and who come together in Barcelona to learn more about their lost father and one another. We follow the story of their father, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Maria de la Pau Janer‘s Pasiones romanas [Roman Passions]. This tells the story of six women from Palma, Majorca, who all have men problems, all losing at least one man, either by death or because he left her (usually for another woman). They also all end up or … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Joan Perucho‘s Les històries naturals (Natural History). This is a spoof of the vampire story, clearly influenced by Hollywood/Hammer Horror, set in the First Carlist War (1830s). We follow the story of Antoni de Montpalau, a learned aristocrat, who takes the liberal side in the Carlist wars. He … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Agustí Bartra‘s Crist de 200.000 braços [Christ of 200,000 Arms]. This novel is set entirely in the Argelès-sur-Mer concentration camp in southern France, which housed 100,000 prisoners (hence the title) at the end of and after the Spanish Civil War, who had fled Francoist Spain. Bartra was a … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Pere Gimferrer‘s Fortuny (Fortuny). Gimferrer is primarily a poet – he wrote only two novels – and this is definitely a poet’s novel. It consists of many small chapters, mainly set in Venice, sensuously described, generally involving historical people from Henry James to Julie Christie, from Émilienne d’Alençon, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Terenci Moix‘s El dia que va morir Marilyn [The Day Marilyn Died]. This book, dedicated to everyone who was twenty the day Marilyn Monroe died, had considerable success in Catalonia and Spain. It tells the story of Barcelona and the era from the 1930s to the 1960s as … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ada Castells‘ Mirada [Look]. It seemingly tells the story of a ghost, a former detective, who is obsessed with a beautiful model called Blanca and falls from scaffolding and dies when spying on her. As a ghost he continues to spy on her. He notices a growth on … Read more