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
The latest addition to my website is Montserrat Roig‘s El temps de les cireres [The Time of Cherries]. It tells the story of Natalia, who has been away twelve years from her home town of Barcelona, primarily in England, and is now returning home, in 1974, aged forty and just eighteen months before the death … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Xavier Benguerel‘s Icària, Icària, a Catalan novel set in Barcelona in 1922 and in the United States some seventy-five years earlier. Clemente Rovira’s father has been arrested by the police, tortured and killed. He joins a group engaged in political assassinations, led by Aurelio who is now in … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Lluís-Anton Baulenas‘ Alfons XIV : un crim d’estat [Alfonso XIV: A Crime of State]. Though one of his novels has been translated into English, this one, sadly, has not. This one, set in 1962, tells the story of a Spanish general close to Franco, Pozos, and, in particular … Read more
There has been a lot of discussion recently by and about translators of novels, the fact that they do not get the credit they deserve and are not recognised. This intelligent article on the subject by Katy Derbyshire, a blogger and translator from the German, is one example. She mentions the sort of things we … Read more