"When someone asks me if I would change anything about my professional career, my answer is always no. I believe that each of the steps I have taken has been necessary and essential to bring me to where I am today". The writer Patricia Ibárcena reflects aloud, leaning on the bar, savoring, in the form of a steaming coffee with milk, the solitary and silent cadences of the early morning hour, accompanied by the radio that can barely be heard in the background at an infinitesimal volume. A white noise that relaxes and invites introspection.
A lawyer by profession, this Barcelona native of Peruvian descent, born in '96, realized five years ago that happiness ---or what most resembles it--- is living surrounded by books. Thought, said, and done: she turned her Instagram account into a vehicle for literary prescription, which was followed by a podcast, elevating her as a reference voice for a generation of young readers with unique bibliographic appetites and desires. Unaware, in any case, of the rules of an aging market that seemed incapable of connecting with young people too absorbed by social media and immediate text, with very few characters and full of errors.
In this context, the regular customer became a kind of activist who began to have a name, an increasingly specific weight, in the publishing world.
Many took very good note of her tastes, of her recommendations. Attentive to a voice that opened doors to new audiences, to the criterion of that twenty-something girl who loved books and never stopped dreaming "that Sant Jordi, the book festival in Catalonia, would not be limited to lasting only one day, but several." But the best was yet to come.
Debuting in a big way
The voracity soon transmuted, in form and substance, from reader to writer. From the need to read, to absorb stories, to live lives printed on paper, to that of explaining, narrating, capturing her own world on a succession of blank pages. And, after putting thread, needle, and hours into the matter, Hijos dorados (Urano) saw the light, Patricia Ibárcena's debut novel and a literary bombshell that has allowed her to fulfill the dream that many nurture and very few achieve: "To leave my job to dedicate myself to my passion, writing."
She confesses that for weeks, which probably felt eternal and turbulent, she was weighing whether or not to take the plunge. "The question that made me decide to leave law was this: in 40 or 50 years, when you look back, what would you like to say, 'I tried' or 'I didn't try'?"
--- And you tried. And you managed to fulfill your dream in youth, before it was too late. Before time killed it.
The writer smiles, "proud to have dared to follow the path of my passion," a week before attending, as one of the most sought-after authors, the Crush Fest: the European reference event for a new young adult literature whose protagonists never exceed a quarter of a century in age and whose novels often combine genres such as romance, thriller, or fantasy. The event will be held at the University of Barcelona next weekend and constitutes a true feast of those TikToker narratives that already account for more than a quarter of total fiction sales in the country.
And, while all this is happening, Patricia warns that she is already "in the full process of writing my second novel." She cannot reveal much about it yet, because some things require their time and moment, "but I can confirm that I am very immersed in this new story and that I like it even more than the previous one!"
A source of inspiration and security
For the local, Barcelona is her home "and always will be." The place where she was born, grew up, and experienced her best and worst moments. "It is a source of inspiration and security," she states, although she would prefer a bit more cleanliness. "Lately the city is very dirty ---she laments---. I notice it in the streets, on the facades of buildings, in the corners and, in general, in the atmosphere. Furthermore, it saddens me to think that this city is increasingly less for its inhabitants and more for the tourists who visit it in droves, without taking care or showing affection in maintaining it."
But, apart from the surrounding grime and the voracity of flip-flop tourism, there are still aspects that continue to make her fall in love with the city. "I love looking up at the sky and getting lost in the modernist facades of the buildings. Or stumbling upon small snippets of Catalan culture when I least expect it, like a group of castellers in a Sarrià square, practicing their impressive formations, or a band playing sardanas, or friends having a Sunday vermouth." These are the small moments that, for the writer, "bring warmth to life in the city," she reflects, finishing the last sip of her café con leche.
--- What truly brings warmth is the gastronomic offer of this Bar, which, from all the talking, it's almost lunchtime, and here we have everything: à la carte, menu, tapas, sandwiches… And everything exquisite.
Patricia Ibárcena cannot contain a slight chuckle.
"It depends a bit on the day and the circumstance, but I usually go for the menu," she replies. She glances around, as if deciding, and finally asks: "What do you have today?"