The debate surrounding the great Barcelona novel has been marred by absurd rivalry. It is not a question of deciding whether the best novels have been written in Catalan or Spanish, but rather of attesting to both languages’ mutual influence.
The city in novels
Considered one of his best post-war novels, ‘Incerta glòria’ [Uncertain Glory] was first published in 1956, but his author extended and modified it until the final version of 1971 was reached.
Nada [Nothing] by Carmen Laforet, and The Time of the Doves by Mercè Rodoreda are two parallel works that complement each other in many ways, becoming two parts of the mosaic of the same historical reality. Read back to back,
In the novels of both Jaume Cabré and Carmen Laforet, the city is full of post-war fear and pain, but their main characters keep out of it and live their own personal tragedies. None of them is free to enjoy
There are fictional cities that seem livelier than real ones. Few authors have erected a Barcelona so much anchored in popular memory, so present in the collective imagination. For eight years I lived a stone’s throw away from the Alaska
Mauricio o las elecciones primarias (‘Mauricio or the Primary Election’) shows a city that doesn’t dare to do what it wishes, a Barcelona that goes from the prescribed dream of the Spanish transition to the promised dream of the Olympic
‘The Shadow of the Wind’ depicts a Gothic city with techniques typical of the audiovisual world. The spirit of the city is raised to the universal on its pages, for which great authors who had looked at Barcelona before act as models.
Barcelona has been constructed page by page from Miguel de Cervantes to the present day. It is pages and streets, neighbourhoods and ink. It is literature under the indecent lamplight of a brothel. It is more than a city. Nestled