Is a writer born or made? How far does the vocation go and how far does a story drag you? Or does it just come to you? This week there have been examples of all kinds: a renowned author who republishes a book, a young woman who puts aside one vocation to embrace another, a grown man who hears that the world has to know the history of his lineage and a poet who He walks with a book in his hand.
Es martes y Antoni Munné-Jordà presents in Obaga bookstore Entre Sant Peters i Sant Pau (Males Herbes). The publisher Ramon Mas – has just published Inventari d’affinitats. Three drifts for Catalan literature of the 20th century in the Dedalus library of the Bloom y Periscopi School -, remember that Munné-Jordà is a great referent in Catalan of fantastic literature, but also a great writer in non-genre works . And it is that the book was a finalist for the Sant Jordi prize in 1995 and was published soon after, but it did not have the expected diffusion.
The author talks with Míriam Cano about the experience of novelizing his own life, because the book portrays the complex relationship of a son with a father, who went to the Blue Division – an episode that he narrates in the twin book Dins del riu, among the joncs – and the effects that this entails: living the guilt for a past that is not his own. Relationships between parents and children, always. Fiction serves him to portray an inherited fear and shame and at the same time narrate the Barcelona of the sixties and seventies, which evolves –so does the language– at the same pace as the characters, but “does not lose the constants”.
The same city, but today, is the setting for Fusta i resina (Column), the first novel by Ofèlia Carbonell and which inaugurates the Brunzits collection directed by Juliana Canet and with which she begins a new professional facet. On Wednesday, at the Ona bookstore, the editor Glòria Gasch explains that one day Canet confessed to her that what she would like is to be an editor, that when she was little she said that she wanted to “work reading”. Gasch replied that the trade is learned by doing it: “You have to give birth to a collection.” Said and done: Brunzits was born, says Canet, “to give a voice to talented people who want to find their place in the world”, and also to “reach people who don’t read and are missing out on a fantastic world”. Focused on young people, but not only. Canet first thought of Ofèlia Carbonell, a member of the Gent de merda podcast and columnist in digital media after having trained as a cellist. And yes, until now she did not consider herself a writer. And yes, the novel is her farewell to which she was a great vocation. The book covers the life of a violin student and her joys, miseries and sacrifices to make ends meet making music: “It is autofiction, yes, there are auto moments and there is fiction, because most situations have not happened to me, but It is the general picture of what I have lived”. Draw a Barcelona where the loneliness that you feel when you don’t fit in prevails. “Studying music is very lonely, too,” she illustrates.
Will it make read? Canet and Carbonell arouse interest and the bookstore is full to the brim with a median age that must be below 30 years – some of us make it go up – and young people keep coming, who stay standing. There are also the other Gent de Merda, Paula Carreras, Rita Roig and Clàudia Rius –current press officer for Culture of the Generalitat. But the author points out that “you don’t have to be young or have that happen to you to enjoy it, I read Harry Potter and I don’t have magic!”
The next day, the music continues with an author who carries a story inside in the most unexpected presentation. Every year there is a party at Elrow House to celebrate the arrival of Sónar, and on Thursday they take advantage of the occasion to present the patriarch’s book, Juan Arnau, Bailar en el desierto (Grijalbo), which narrates the origins of the lineage, with the great-great-grandfather of Arnau, who opened the Josepet café in 1870 in Fraga, where they lived and which will be the origin of the family business: later the cinema and later the Florida135 nightclub, until reaching the raves of Los Monegros and the parties that Elrow organizes today all over the world. the world. A festive presentation with people from the musical and audiovisual world, such as Carlos Bayona –the filmmaker’s twin, yes, he is a DJ and music producer– or Alicia Reginato, from La Chula Productions. The book was presented by the editor, Ana Caballero, Arnau’s children –he prefers to give up the limelight–, Juan and Cruz –today they are the ones who carry the weight of the business–, and the director of Elrow, Vicenç Martí. The story of a family that has dedicated itself for six generations to make others enjoy through the party. They still do and it shows.
I leave with the electronic music stuck in my brain to go to Ona de Gràcia to listen to Jordi Llavina, who presents his Carles Riba award, Un llum que crema (Proa). It’s full and hot. There are the writers Jordi Fernando and Jordi Puntí and the musical director Josep Prats. After Llavina guides us through the poems, in the countryside, and makes us feel that “poetry is alive”, her nephews Rita and Genís Arnal, voice and guitar, perform some songs. Every word, every music, every artist finds its place.
Catalan version, here
