Life boils within her. “People often think of me as quiet and rather methodical, but I am quite the opposite. I am in a constant battle against distraction, chaos, and sleeplessness.” Rosa Ribas says this without drama, without losing the smile of someone who feels at ease, leaning against the bar, savouring a late-morning beer, pleased that the mellow notes of Flamingo by the Conte Candoli Quartet in the background allow her to follow the thread of conversation without drifting off into the music and, at the same time, “sparing me those wretched piped-music bossa nova covers of pop hits that I loathe!”
Unable to sleep as a child, she would dream up stories to tell her younger sister at night. Since she loved to talk, one day her teacher, Don Juan, said something that changed everything: “‘I am sure what you have to say is fascinating – why don't you write it down?’, that is what he told me.” And so she began writing. “Stories, because fiction always appealed to me far more than, say, keeping a diary.” She hatched many tales, but – being a shy girl – never showed them to a soul.
“I studied Hispanic Literature and, paradoxically, during those years I almost stopped writing altogether. All that literary analysis left me overwhelmed, completely blocked. I felt as though I were conducting an autopsy on something lifeless, stripped of magic.” It was all beginning to look like the script of a dreary, unimaginative tale. “I graduated, started teaching at a secondary school – I was twenty-six – and I could see it coming: by forty I would be depressed, and by fifty my only thought would be retirement.”
That could not be the rest of her life, and then came the inevitable, providential change of course. “Driven by my love of German and classical music, and also by the need to get away from here, I left for Germany, initially planning to stay for just a year.” In the end, she stayed for three decades.
In Germany, writing burst back into her life like champagne erupting from a shaken bottle. “I debuted in 2006 with a historical novel, El pintor de Flandes, a work of fiction inspired by a true event I came across in research by my father-in-law, who was connected to the major German publishing house Reichenberger, specialising in the Spanish Golden Age.” From that point on, there was no holding back, “because for me, writing is the single most essential thing in my life. It is who I am.” Just like breathing, really.
For me, writing is the single most essential thing in my life. It is who I am.
Full steam ahead, and without outlines
Rosa Ribas dreams of being that Germanic archetype of a writer, “entirely methodical and organised.” But reality is quite different and far more vibrant. “I know what I want to say and where I want to go, so I do not use outlines. For me, the greatest joy of writing is precisely moving forward and adapting the book to what happens as the writing unfolds.” Just as one does not think about breathing, but simply breathes.
Flanked by a loyal cohort of readers and friendships “of which I feel deeply proud,” she has not stopped over the past two decades. She has published nearly twenty books across varied styles, from historical fiction to crime, creating indelible characters such as police commissioner Cornelia Weber-Tejedor, reporter Ana Martí – co-created with German author Sabine Hofmann – private eye Irene Ricart, and the Hernández family of detectives, for which she reveals she is already working on the fifth instalment. “And to think I originally planned it as a trilogy, but you see how these things go,” she laughs. She even wrote a book in German, “which remained unpublished, but proved to me that I was capable of writing a novel in that language.”
Meanwhile, she has just brought out Todos duermen (Tusquets), a taut psychological suspense novel starring Ana, an agoraphobic young woman who, relying on her memory and intuition, must confront the fears and traumas that hold her captive and paralyse her search for the truth.
Still in contemplation mode
The writer spent her childhood and youth in El Prat, “in my family's bar, behind whose counter I learned to walk and later to socialise.” From there she moved directly to Berlin, and shortly afterwards to Frankfurt. “I have lived in Barcelona city since 2021, when my husband and I decided to move here, and it was the right life choice – one that has also been very good for my literary career, since I am closer to everything: publishers, book fairs, festivals…”
Her assessment after five years living in the Sants neighbourhood is overwhelmingly positive. “Despite the noise and the thoughtlessness of certain people who do not look after their surroundings as they should, I find the city beautiful, and I am still in contemplation mode, enchanted by the atmosphere of its streets, this blend of town planning and landscape.” She pauses for a few seconds to finish her beer before adding: “Barcelona is bursting with life and, truly, much as I love Frankfurt, I do not believe I could live anywhere better.”
Barcelona is bursting with life and, truly, much as I love Frankfurt, I do not believe I could live anywhere better.
– That sentiment might be reinforced even further by our food offering. Lunchtime is drawing near, and you might just be tempted by some tapas, sharing plates, or our set menu…
The tavern keeper inside Rosa Ribas immediately comes to the surface: the clatter of plates, the hiss of the espresso machine releasing steam, lively conversation, and no grand pretensions beyond feeding and watering one's neighbours well. “I think I will go for tapas, because if there is one thing I love in this life, it is picking and grazing from one plate to the next,” she says, without losing her smile or that keen gaze that absorbs everything around her to turn it into words. To write, which for her remains, after all, as has already been said, just like breathing.
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