This blogger loves the picture of a bookvan (mobile bookstore) in Lisbon (Belém?). It made the news in the summer of 2013, as it visited different sights to promote Portuguese authors among foreign tourists:
“In Cais do Sodré the tourists can meet O Memorial do Convento[Baltasar and Blimunda] by José Saramago. In Príncipe Real it is time for Eça de Queirós (1845-1900, Wikipedia) and his classic Os Maias [The Maias]. In Belém, to come across Fernando Pessoa and his Desassossego [The Book of Disquiet]. Translated into English, French, Spanish and German, the books by José Cardoso Pires (1925-1998, Wikipedia), Jacinto Lucas Pires (Porto, 1974, +info), Gonçalo M. Tavares and Miguel Torga (1907-1995, Wikipedia) are also some of those available in this van.” (Marta Spínola Aguiar)
You can read more about the project on its website.
If you need a reminder of what it’s all about, please visit the 2023 post (with links to even older posts).
One of today’s best-selling novels in Spain will probably be the latest by Fernando Aramburu
Fernando Aramburu, El niño [The boy], 2024, 272 p.
publisher’s summary:
A real accident in the Basque Country in the eighties, the devastated life of a family. An exciting, addictive and moving story, as only Aramburu knows how to tell.
Nicasio, now retired, usually goes up to the Ortuella cemetery on Thursdays to visit the grave of his grandson. He is one of the many children who died after a gas explosion in a school in that town, an accident that shook the Basque Country and all of Spain in 1980. By the wanderings of the grandfather, a figure that grows until it becomes unforgettable, because of the testimony from the mother many years later, through the objective chronicle of what happened to the family, the readers discover how that lacerating and devastating tragedy altered them, how it brought out unexpected aspects, how it disrupted their lives. With Aramburu’s usual mastery, the readers will be immersed in a story of unexpected emotions, a psychological and literary exploration with a sharp scalpel that keeps them glued to the future of the protagonists’ destinies. A novel that harbors such a high emotional density that it requires careful reading, until the last line, to understand, understand, and be moved by the fate of its protagonists. New installment of the extraordinary frieze of the “Gentes vascas” [Basque People] series, El niño is a heartbreaking, unforgettable story, a literary prodigy from Aramburu as his best. Due to the very humane treatment of the protagonists, and the literary resources used, El niño once again is a memorable novel, destined to become a literary event.
The critics think that Aramburu did a good job considering the many difficulties treating a topic like this without lapsing into sentimentalism. (They didn’t like his previous novel, Los vencejos [The swifts].)
There is a post from 2016 on Aramburu’s international best-seller Patria / Fatherland.
Your blogger recently discovered, thanks to a review by Sergio del Molino of a more recent book by the same author, Edmund de Waal, The Hare with Amber Eyes (2010), and can recommend it as a nice mix of cultural, political, family history and “the making of” all in one.
SOURCE: publisher (Tusquets, Planeta), review by Domingo Ródenas de Moya in “Babelia,” El País, 6 April 2024, p. 4 [printed edition]
Earlier this month when I felt like cleaning up after the holidays, I looked through a stash of newspaper cuttings from 2023 with book reviews, editorials, etc. that I thought would make good topics for blog posts.
Here are some of them that finally didn’t make it into individual posts:
April: David Jiménez, La palabra ambigua. Los intelectuales en España (1889-2019) [The ambiguous word: Spain’s intellectuals]; Basilio Baltasar, El intelectual rampante. Chimaera bombinans in vacuo. [The rampant intellectual: a chimera booming in the void] [La Vanguardia (LV), 8 April 2023, pp. 36-37; La Casa… for the cover pic]
Susana Quadrado reminded the readers of her weekly column that “the Balearic Islands are not a theme park”. There are no moments left of the year when you won’t find masses of tourists all over Majorca; the same is true for Barcelona with a mainly negative impact on the local population: a housing crisis (AirBnB), low-paid jobs in services –even though you, the visitors, pay premium prices–, air-pollution due to air/port activity – and a few owners in the hospitality industry who make nice profits [LV, 15 April 2023].
Antònia Justícia explained the real story behind Concha Pasamar’s Bibliotecarias a caballo, a children’s book that remembers the Pack Horse Librarians (1936-1943); cf. Donald C. Boyd, The Book Women of Kentucky: The WPA Pack Horse Library Project. [“Cultura/s,” LV, 22 April 2023, pp. 38-39; Amazon for the cover pic]
May: Antonio Muñoz Molina, in an op-ed article on the horrors of Spain’s public administration, mentioned Michael Reid’s Spain: The Trials and Triumphs of a Modern European Country [El País, 6 May 2023, p. 11; bookseller for the cover pic]
Leonor Mayor Ortega presented the project The Barcelonian by Luisa Vera and Inés García-Albí, a magazine consisting only of its artistic cover in the style of The New Yorker (or the French Dispatch). It was born during the Covid pandemic and found many imitators in other Spanish cities. [LV, 13 May 2023, p. 52; publisher for the cover pic and further examples!]
El País had reading recommendations in its special edition for the Madrid Book Fair, among them Victoria Bermejo’s Sí, lo hice [Yes, I did it], a funny novel on the publishing industry; Juan Iturralde/a.k.a. José María Pérez Prat, Días de llamas [Days of flames], a reedition of a 1979 novel on the Spanish Civil War; Hernán Ronsino’s Una música [A tune], book of the year by the Buenos Aires book fair; Ramón Masats’ Visit Spain [sic], “An ironic view on Spain [1955-1965] by one of the most decisive photographers of our country.” [“Babelia,” El País, 27 May 2023, pp. 4 and 8; publisher for the cover pic]
June: El descubrimiento de Europa. Indígenas y mestizos en el Viejo Mundo [The discovery of Europe: Indigenous and Mestizos in the Old World] by Esteban Mira Caballos sheds light on the approximately 2.500 natives who came to Spain as slaves between 1493 and 1542 [LV, 17 June 2023, p. 42]. It was not the only book talking about slavery and its role in Spanish wealth accumulation until the loss of the empire in 1898: Xavier Sust Fatjó, Deu històries negreres. Expedicions transatlàntiques catalanes al segle XIX [Ten slave traders’ stories: 19th century Catalan transatlantic expeditions], not a global overview of the system, but ten specific cases. The reviewer, Joan Esculies, recommends it as an addition to Josep M. Fradera’s Antes del antiimperialismo [Before Anti-Imperialism; more information in English][“Cultura/s,” LV, 25 Feb. 2023, p. 8; publisher for the cover pic]
July: Joan Esculies reviewed Josep Burgaya’s Tiempos de confusión [Times of confusion] in which the writer recommends the parties of the left to stop engaging in identity politics, culture wars and fights among themselves, and instead present a message of hope, concentrating on economics (monetary and fiscal policies) and a good life for all. [“Cultura/s,” LV, 1 July 2023, p. 8]
Perico Pastor wrote La Vanguardia‘s obituary for Didier Lourenço [1968-2023; homepage], the painter of the “bicycle girl” [LV, 29 July 2023, p. 27]
August: Antoni Puigverd praised the late Vicenç Pagès Jordà’s novel Los jugadores de Whist [The whist players](2009) and presented one of its settings, the Sant Ferran castle in Figueres (Girona; website). [LV, 5 Aug 2023, p. 14]
Sílvia Colomé praised the Eines i feines [tools and tasks] collection by the Brau publishing company, e.g. Eines i feines del pagès [A farmer’s tools and tasks] [LV, 5 Aug 2023, p. 15; publisher for the cover pic]
And still in the same weekend edition at the beginning of a long holiday month, Màrius Serra recommended Mercedes Abad’s Escuela de escritura [Writers’ school]. [LV, 5 Aug. 2023, p. 38]
Fall: The 2023 Herralde novel prize went to Luis López Carrasco for El desierto blanco [The white desert]; there is more information by the publisher in English.
The same publisher also awarded the Anagrama prize for a novel in Catalan to Andrea Genovart, Consum preferent [Best before; publisher’s information], and the Anagrama essay prize to Nadal Suau for Curar la piel. Ensayo en torno al tatuaje [Cure of the skin: essay on the tattoo; publisher’s page in Spanish].
The third Monday in January is considered to be the dreariest day of the year, at least in the Northern hemisphere [Wikipedia]. Your blogger hopes this post has brought some light into your day.
Pilar Adón (Madrid, 1971; website) won the Premio Nacional de narrativa 2023 [national writing prize], awarded by the Spanish state through the Ministry of Culture and endowed with 30k €, for her novel De bestias y aves [Of beasts and fowls], described as a work of “great originality, beauty, poetic richness and force of language.” The work had already won three other literary prizes. [EFE newsagency, Oct. 23]
Màrius Serra dedicated one of his latest culture columns to a novel about a drug addict and his family, entitled Els dies bons [The good days], written in Catalan by the Mallorcan author Aina Fullana Llull (Manacor, 1997), and edited by the Valencian publisher Bromera. It won the 2021 prize València Alfons el Magnànim and the Valencian writer’s critique prize, but received very little attention by Catalan readers, according to Serra [La Vanguardia, Dec. 23, p. 52].
Mario Vargas Llosa (Arequipa, Perú, 1936) announced that Le dedico mi silencio [I dedicate my silence to you/him/her] would be his last novel ever, an announcement not taken seriously by La Vanguardia‘s literary critic J.A. Masoliver Ródenas [“Culturas,” La Vanguardia, Dec. 10, p. 10]. His literary agency offers more information on the novel in English [Carmen Balcells].
Sixty years after its original publication in 1963, Penelope Chetwode’s Two Middle-Aged Ladies in Andalucia, the account of a journey on horseback she took in 1961, has recently been published in Spanish [Wikipedia]; Amazon].
Fall is the season for literary prizes, a useful indicator for many for their Christmas shopping…
This year’s Goncourt novel prize (France) went to Jean-Baptiste Andrea for Veiller sur elle [Watch over her; 583 p.]. It is set in Italy in 1986, where a dying sculptor, Mimo, looks back onto his long and diverse life and that of his loved one, Viola. The title refers to his last sculpture.
This year’s Cervantes prize, the most important lifetime achievement award for a Spanish language writer, will go to Luis Mateo Díez [Wikipedia]; the ceremony will take place at Cervantes’ burial day (also Shakespeare’s day of death), 23 April.
This year’s Proa [Grup 62; Catalan language area of Planeta publishing group] novel prize went to Laura Gost for Les cendres a la piscina [The ashes in the pool]. Excerpted from Jordi Nopca’s article:
Weddings and adulteries. Promising and disappointing kids. The construction of new hotels and three-story chalets at the waterfront. All of this and a lot more appears in Les cendres a la piscina, Laura Gost’s (Sa Pobla, Mallorca, 1993) novel winning the 5th Proa prize, endowed with 40k €. The ironic view is one of the characteristic traits of the author who in this case concentrates on a family from Sa Pobla, inspired by her own, that gets rich through the hotel business.
On 232 pages the novel condenses three generations of a Majorcan family, the last of which is being represented by one of the granddaughters, Laura, who shares the author’s name and viewpoint. “She is curious to understand the reasons for some of the actions protagonized by people she loves,” explains Gost who for years has thought that “irony makes life more digestible.” Because of that the considers it her “preferred language after Catalan.” And she adds: “Humor is a good antidote against certain excesses of solemnity.”
You can get information on the National Book Awards (USA) at the official website.
This year’s Booker prize (UK) went to Paul Lynch for Prophet’s Song (official website).
The Nero Awards (UK, IR) published their shortlist.
Coinciding with the start of Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, Sony Pictures published a video of the protagonist visiting the Prado museum in Madrid.
SOURCE: Wikipedia (Goncourt); Ara (newspaper for Proa prize); Proa (cover picture)
There are so many things going on, and your blogger started gardening which keeps him away from the desk…
In Sept. 2023, a new writer’s retreat, Residencia Literaria Finestres, opened on the Costa Brava, funded by the Finestres foundation, linked to the pharmaceutical company Ferrer International. This is the place where Truman Capote is said to have written In Cold Blood. The pictures on their web are breath-taking, the residences are one month long. Something similar Patti Smith wanted to do with Arthur Rimbaud’s family farm she bought in 2017. There is a 2020 article (L’Est Républicain, in French), but this blogger couldn’t find any indication that the project has come into existence yet.
On 15 Oct., this year’s Planeta novel prize [1M€] was awarded to the journalist Sonsoles Ónega for Las hijas de la criada [The handmaid’s daughters], the story of a Galician family’s (love) life during nearly a century. At the center stands the exchange of two cribs with offspring by the same father and the following events. “Love, heartbreak, lack of affection, bitterness, not feeling loved…” (Ónega, according to 20 Minutos). (In 2017, with her first novel, Ónega already won a literary prize by the same publishing group.) The runner up prize [200k€] was awarded to the youngest author ever, Alfonso Goizueta, a 23 year old historian, for La sangre del padre [The father’s blood] a novel on Alexander the Great. Both novels will be published on 8 Nov. There are older post on this very commercial prize from 2021, 2020, and 2019.
The 75th Frankfurt Book Fair is held this week. This year’s guest country is Slovenia, and you can find more information on their official website.
On 20 Oct., the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami (Kyoto, 1949) will be awarded this year’s Princess of Asturias Award for Literature in a celebration at Oviedo, Asturias [northern Spain]. The foundation bears the name and patronage of the Spanish heir to the throne. You can find more information on their official website; and in the unlikely case that you are unfamiliar with Murakami, there’s a Wikipediaarticle. Two of this year’s winners died recently, the French social scientist Hélène Carrère d’Encausse [mother of the writer Emmanuel Carrère], and the Italian philosopher Nuccio Ordine.
On 25 Oct., at Barcelona’s CCCB [Centre for Contemporary Culture], there starts the Kosmopolis Literature Fest with Catalan, Spanish and international authors. More information on their web.
The Guardian offers reliable background information on the 2023 winner of the Nobel prize in literature.
The Wikipediaarticle shows that quite a lot of Fosse’s short stories and novels and some of his plays have already been translated into English, which might be considered unusual as in the past the Nobel prize has often gone to quite obscure authors that gained notoriety among the wider public due to winning the prize.
Your blogger came among the name Jon Fosse once before in volume 5 of fellow Norwegian Ole Knausgard’s My struggle series.
For Spanish readers: Amazon ofrece algunas obras de Fosse también en español y seguramente se (re)editarán muchas más en los próximos meses, aunque las lectoras de inglés pueden disfrutar de su obra a un precio más económico.
Michael Reid, Spain: The Trials and Triumphs of a Modern European Country, 2023, 336 p.
More information at the Source.
Antonio Muñoz Molina mentioned this book in a quite pessimistic article on the Spanish bureaucracy, the over-supply of politicians and their hand-picked, public-sector paid advisers, and their lack of interest in genuine public administration reform.
There will be a Spanish translation of this book.
SOURCE: Yale UP; op-ed article in El País, 6 May 2023, p. 11
literary rambles 