After last year's record-breaking Sant Jordi, with constant rivers of people at any time of day, the city is preparing for its first working April 23 since the pandemic, with the hope that one can breathe a little more easily at a festival where it increasingly feels like there's no room to move. All this, while still preserving itself as an eminently local day, still little explored, fortunately, by free tours. With once again breathtaking forecasts, the diada will feature almost 340 stalls, the highest number in history, somewhat tarnished by the controversy that has arisen this year with the introduction of the co-payment model for the stalls. These figures have gained cruising speed in recent years, despite the impact of the pandemic, as shown when recalling that, in 2017, just seven years ago, there were only about 190 stalls.
La Rambla will once again be one of the undisputed protagonists of this Sant Jordi, fully recovering its layout after years of comings and goings. From Canaletas to Santa Mònica, strollers and rose and book stalls will once again overflow the city's most emblematic artery, making the route continue along Paseo de Gràcia, where the literary super-block of recent years will be maintained, and Gran de Gràcia, with annexes such as Plaza Universitat and Paseo de Sant Joan. With so much ground to cover, it is important to be clear about which books to give or to give oneself, preferably always accompanied by a rose. Here is a selection of the latest releases, with ten titles for all tastes.
- Tres enigmas para la Organización, Eduardo Mendoza (Seix Barral)
Eduardo Mendoza's latest novel, who seemed like he wasn't going to write anything else after the trilogy starring Rufo Batalla. A fun and crazy detective story through a Barcelona crammed with tourists and super-rich foreign yachts.
Three Enigmas for the Organization(Seix Barral) features a body of not-at-all-sexy, clumsy, and ill-tempered spies, but absolutely charming and human, official members of a governmental organization born during the dictatorship that no one remembers anymore but continues to function, without knowing very well what they have to do. A pleasant return from one of the authors who knows the city best.
- Ofert a les mans, el paradís crema, Pol Guasch (Llibres Anagrama)
After the successful
Napalm to the heart(Anagrama Novel Prize 2021), Pol Guasch
publishes Offer in hand, paradise burns(Anagrama Books), a novel in which he wanted to investigate what friends do, but also how they face secrets, betrayals, and envy. As in his first book, more focused on love, the writer has constructed an intentionally disordered narrative that takes place in an alternative time where everything burns and it no longer rains, with AIDS impacting the story of the protagonists, Rita and Lyton, who try to discover their identity, determined by things that are no longer there.
- Ocàs i fascinació, Eva Baltasar (Random House/Club Editor)
Eva Baltasar leaves behind her celebrated trilogy on motherhood and opens a new path with
Dusk and Fascination(Random House/Club Editor), where spirituality becomes the only refuge from precariousness and exposure. A nameless protagonist, like all those who live with the author, absorbs the discomforts of current society, with jobs that provide little and shared flats where one cannot live, until she no longer minimally fits in and is thrown onto the street, where she barely survives until she finds a way to defy the established order by inhabiting the houses she cleans when no one is there. Another uncomfortable story from the writer who has established herself as the first Catalan-language author to be a finalist for the International Booker Prize with
Boulder(2020).
- One must arrive at the forest when it is still dark, Maria Arimany (L'Altra Editorial)
Maria Arimany won the Documenta 2023 Prize with the collection of short stories
One must arrive at the forest when it is still dark(L'Altra Editorial), where she talks about everything that causes fear, doubts, and uncertainty, but also anger and forces resignation. A good discovery with a defined and consistent voice, immersed in the forests inhabited by her characters, often far from urban noise. Lluís-Anton Baulenas, Melcior Comes, Bel Olid, Alicia Kopf, and Irene Solà are some of the other winners of this award organized by the Documenta bookstore for fiction writers in Catalan under 35 years old.
- La conformista, Alba Dedeu (Sexto Piso/L'Altra Editorial)
A short novel that speaks in a simple way about everyday life, its smells and fears, accompanying Eva in her inevitable routine, always permeated by the rotisserie chickens she sells with her husband, illustrating one of the most common and least claimed Barcelona symbols. All of this, with a sincere voice, without artifice or constraints, fully entering the minds of many when they doubt. A great debut by Alba Dedeu with a sincere novel after her collections of short stories
Cats in the park(Mercè Rodoreda Short Story Prize 2011) and
Summer never ends(2012).
- Complete Poetry, Ana Maria Moix (Lumen)
Lumen recovers the poetry of Ana Maria Moix on the tenth anniversary of her death. Representative of the
gauche divine, the Barcelona-born author published
Ballads of Sweet Jim,
No time for flowers and
Call me Stone between 1962 and 1972, collected in 1983 by Lumen in the volume
In image and likeness. Now the editor and critic Andreu Jaume expands it with two unpublished poetry collections,
Words, for example and
Songbook for a Lady, written between 1966 and the early 1970s. The novelist was also relegated and forgotten as a poet, despite having been highly acclaimed, dedicating herself also to translation and editing, as well as honoring the memory of her brother, also a writer, Terenci Moix. A few weeks ago, the Fort Pienc Library was renamed after her.
- En agosto nos vemos, Gabriel García Márquez (Random House)
The controversial return of a Gabriel García Márquez who wanted nothing to do with this work, but which his children ended up publishing ten years after his death.
See You in August(Random House) is a brief opportunity to immerse oneself in the rich universe of the Colombian author, far from the immensity of his great titles, with the story of a protagonist who decides to enjoy furtive sexuality in her maturity, only once a year, every August 16. "In an act of betrayal, we decided to put the pleasure of readers before all other considerations. If they celebrate it, it is possible that Gabo will forgive us. We trust in that," state Rodrigo and Gonzalo García Barcha.
- Baumgartner, Paul Auster (Seix Barral/Edicions 62)
Reading Paul Auster is always a luxury. With a few lines, the American writer once again immerses himself in a story that keeps growing, jumping from one point to another, returning again and again to where he wants, oozing a wound that has disrupted the life of the protagonist, a Philosophy professor named Baumgartner on the verge of retirement. The fears of the years confront a destiny that only Auster knows how to outline, obsessed as he is with how chance determines our days. After the extensive
4 3 2 1(Seix Barral/Edicions 62) and with cancer present, the author talks about it again, playing with the reader and always making them have a good time.
- Paris 2024, Francisco Ibáñez (Bruguera)
Last chance to learn about the adventures of Mortadelo and Filemón with
Paris 2024 (Bruguera), the comic strip that Francisco Ibáñez left unfinished. Still immersed in the creative process when he died last summer, the Barcelona genius left a total of 20 unpublished pages of typed script and pencil vignettes, with which his meticulous work process can be discovered. This time, the popular agents travel to this year's Olympic Games, where they have to solve a mystery that is putting their celebration at risk. And, for those who haven't done so yet, the T.I.A.'s investigations can be accompanied by an exhaustive review of their tasks in
Ibáñez. The master of the comic strip(Bruguera) by Jordi Canyissà.
- Dogs, Keum Suk Gendry-Kim (Reservoir Books)
The new comic by the author of the successful
Hierba (Reservoir Books), this time, focusing on that companion for many, without forgetting human violence. Keum Suk Gendry-Kim portrays in
Dogs (Reservoir Books) to a non-dog family that ends up becoming one, in need of new bonds to overcome pain. An opportunity to re-immerse oneself in the black and white strokes of the Korean author, who has become a global phenomenon with the graphic novel that portrays the silenced life of those known ascomfort womenAsians in World War II, sex slaves who were stripped of everything, mistreated and used at will by the usual suspects. Its translation into Catalan,
Herba, has been recently published by Reservoir Books.