The dogs take over Plaza Joan Coromines in Barcelona every afternoon. There are many owners who remain to chat while the animals run around in front of the MACBA and the CCCB. Last Monday it was inevitable that the talk led to the hustle and bustle that echoed from one of the terraces. “There is a party and I haven’t heard about it?” one of them asked a student who was leaving the communication department. The truth is that there was, because that same morning the Llibres Anagrama de Novel·la prize was awarded, which went to Clara Queraltó for Com el so d’un batec en un micròfon, a mirror novel about seduction.
The news was well worth a celebration. Editors, journalists and writers came there, such as last year’s winner, Andrea Genovart. Also a Dalmatian, who was absent from the square for a few minutes and took advantage of the distraction of those present with the award ceremony to sniff the canapés. The photographer Àlex García caught him red-handed, but he preferred to become an accomplice and not betray him.
“I am happy to know that this novel has been born and will be published in Catalan, my language. A language that I see disappearing little by little, like a rain that wears away the paint on a facade. I think that, also like a rain, there are fewer and fewer books, fewer readers and fewer speakers of my language. And I fear that, from this slow agony, the gray and uniform world will result that wants us all speaking the same and, perhaps, all of us thinking the same,” reflected the writer and professor of Catalan language and literature.
The Finestres bookstore is another meeting place for people from the world of culture. But last Tuesday more people gathered there than are used to seeing those four walls. The reason? The presentation of The Horrible Daughters (KO Books), by Blanca Lacasa, by the author herself and the presenter and comedian Marc Giró.
In her book, the journalist investigates why there is often so much tension between mother and daughters. “Are we condemned to not understand each other? I remember one time someone said that he got along very well with her family, with everyone, and everyone started applauding. It’s really something anecdotal,” she reflected while the audience applauded her, agreeing with her.
“You don’t need to kill your mother, but you do need to become independent and be autonomous. At fifty you don’t feel like you’re ten. And this is something that happens much more to women. Now, just as I say one thing, I also insist that we cannot blame everything on our mothers. Go to the psychologist, please,” the author suggested.
Karima Ziali also spoke about mothers and fathers at the Altaïr bookstore. The philosopher debuts in fiction with A Prayer Without God (Esdrújula Ediciones), a novel that brings closer the reality of the second generations of migrants. “For me, there are only women with children in the world. It sounds harsh, but that’s how it is. In the family that I propose in my book, the father’s only role is the subsistence of the family. But the rest, such as the educational world, care, or the emotional burden, does not interest him. And it happens with many men, especially of a certain generation,” she observes.
The author of Sense Sucre (2022), Mireia Estrada, accompanied him at the event, as there are several parallels that exist between both works, as they deal with topics such as social integration, the clash of cultures and identity. Ziali does it alongside Morad, his main protagonist, a young man of Riffian origin who faces a tangle of contradictions at a time of change and doubt.
