All of Maria Barbal's stories

Maria Barbal (Tremp, 1949) explains that "in the villages, before, especially in winter, there was a desire for stories, anecdotes lived and modified by those who told them, or invented at the moment of speaking." It is in her native Pallars where she began to set her first stories, a genre she has continued to write throughout her literary career, more prone to novels, but with a good collection of short narratives as can be seen in Tots els contes (Columna). "And so, so, the hours passed. They also pass today. In libraries they tell stories, and also someone alone reads without moving their lips, on the beach, in an armchair or under a pine tree. Yes, also today," she relates in the prologue of a compilation made up of almost 100 stories, most of them published in volumes, but also others distributed in periodicals or in thematic anthologies and a few unpublished ones. "A new look at Barbal's universe," her editor, Glòria Gas, anticipates.

A reader of Mercè Rodoreda and Víctor Català, Barbal believes that stories have sometimes seemed more difficult to achieve than novels. Now that she has had to look back, the author believes that she has not changed that much during all these years, nor has she if she looks at her first narratives, which she began to write in the 80s. "The stories are very close to my first creative impulse which was Pedra de tartera (1985). They are not about the Civil War, but they do touch on territorial issues, such as the depopulation of the Pyrenees," Barbal maintains, "besides, it's a world that I have very close to me right now."

Then came those of the 90s, where there was a project of stories like Ulleres de sol, with a specific approach, although the contents do not necessarily have to be very different from those of the previous stage, but they have been thought about more. Finally, there are those of the 2000s, when the writer made a list of ideas susceptible to becoming a story and developed them when she found the threads to pull. An appendix are the "obligatory stories," those that she was asked to write for compilations that talked about a thousand different topics, about single women, about Christmas, about historical memory or about refugees. "They make me very lazy, but, sometimes, the result has been very satisfactory," she assesses.

However, when they told her to compile all her short stories, she felt a bit dizzy. First, because she hasn't been "very organized" and found it difficult to find some titles, and second, because she was worried about not knowing what she would do with the urge to rewrite if she didn't like what she reread. "As time passes, one's perspective becomes more critical, I've written more and I've changed," she indicates. Luckily, she understood that she had to be more permissive with the writer she had been. "That initial scare at the thought of a volume of all the stories has changed into excitement and satisfaction," she asserts.

Thus, the stories included in the Columna publication have not undergone modifications, emphasizes editor and translator Carme Arenas, responsible for bringing order and finding an organization that could also surprise readers who have already read them before. It does not follow a chronological order nor has it been grouped according to the volumes she had already published, such as La mort de Teresa (1989), Pampallugues (1991), Ulleres de sol (1994), Bari (1998), La pressa del temps (2009) or Cada dia penso en tu (2011). A story written in Spanish, untranslated, El segundo verano, has also been included. Arenas opted to group the stories by themes, creating eleven sections. From the mountains, origins, and family to human nature, love, and memories. There is also a section of stories for all ages, rejecting the category of children's. Once included in a label, the narratives are ordered alphabetically. "From the first to the last, they have the same quality. Nothing is superfluous," remarks Arenas, who has not discarded any, even though Barbal granted her this license if necessary.

With all this, there are three unpublished stories. One is Por de volar, one of those that are started and abandoned, in this case, started in the 90s and finished now. It is quite long, Barbal warns, and talks about the contrast between people who consider themselves cultured and simple people. "It could have been a novel," Barbal points out, recalling that two of his stories ended up becoming longer narratives. It also happened to him with a novel, A l'amic escocès, from which a story about a brigadista came out. He does not rule out that it will happen again with Por de volar, but it will not be now, but when the writing break he has been maintaining for a few months passes, after two intense promotions with Tándem (Premi Josep Pla, 2021) and Al llac (2021), and he has more time. The second unpublished story is El nen de les baldufes, included in the all-ages section and dedicated to his eldest grandson. Finally, Despertar, about the transformation a character undergoes when they meet someone who causes them euphoria.

What has also been a surprise has been the dimension of the work, with more than 700 pages and making this volume a perfect book for the nightstand. That is why it is accompanied by three bookmark ribbons, allowing one to immerse themselves in the stories according to their taste, leaving the reading stopped at one point and resuming it later. "One can have the feeling that, if these are all the stories, I have already finished this work, I have already been dismissed as a storyteller, but I have to be a little optimistic and think that I will write some more," he ventures.