Finally, a book that makes you smile (thank you)

BarcelonaIf you see them together, you can imagine what their weekend vermouth sessions were like. Jordi Puntí, Miqui Otero, and Irene Pujadas shared a radio storytelling segment on The supplement from Catalunya Radio. The idea, which originated with Puntí, has a literary basis: apparently, Paul Auster asked listeners of American National Public Radio to send in their stories, and he, with minimal editing, would create a narrative and read it on air. The Catalan version of the experiment was titled It seems unbelievable. The idea was for listeners to send one-minute anecdotes to Catalan public radio via WhatsApp, which writers would then capture and, like a literary machine, transform into short stories.

That short-lived segment has now been perpetuated by Quaderns Crema in a book of short stories. It seems unbelievable.The three authors have made the leap from their respective publishing houses—Miqui Otero is even making his debut as a short story writer in Catalan—to publish with the house that has most revered the tradition of humorous short stories in Catalan—one only needs to mention Monzó and Sergi Pàmies, who wrote the prologue. The result is an entertaining collection that has the appeal of good literature and the charm of human frailties: a post-Christmas dinner caper battle, a man who enters his best friend (a dog) in a race, a long-distance olfactory relationship, choking on an engagement ring... "Every experience is literature. There's always chicha"Pujadas emphasizes.

The raw material of the stories is misunderstandings, the difference between how one thinks something happened and how others see it, neurosis, or chance, "which in fiction gives us order to the narrative, while in life it destroys you," says Otero. "The book is a mosaic of current obsessions filtered through our own perspective," describes the author ofOrchestraWith the added charm that "you can clearly see from what height we view life," Puntí adds about the three different generations of authors: in Pujadas' stories there are "people in their 30s in the midst of a rite of passage or searching for their strength," in Otero's there are many "middle-aged guys" messing it up"And in Puntí's stories, 'you can see this guy in the future: they're divorced,'" they joke.

"Short stories are like potato chips or candy," says Puntí. "You start and finish quickly, but there's an underlying literary and stylistic intent. And, through accumulation, they describe a time and a world." "Kafka said that the short story is the ideal genre for an animal, because it will always find a way out. A novel might change the way you look at the world, while short stories stare back at you to see your reaction, what similarities you've encountered," says Otero. The three insist that these stories aren't stylistic exercises, but rather part of their literary corpus.

The Whats group Compulsive gossipsMiqui Otero sees these stories as "an invitation to the euphoria of storytelling." She imagines "these tales being shared at dinner parties with friends, prompting everyone to recount their own anecdotes." So, in the end, I ask them for their It seems unbelievable. for imagining ourselves over vermouth. Jordi Puntí did the Camino de Santiago, always getting the best spots in the hostels, because he was hitchhiking. Miqui Otero once flew to Seville when the plane was supposed to land in Santiago (a minor mix-up by the group: SVQ instead of SCQ). Irene Pujadas also confesses her It seems unbelievable But she's too embarrassed, so we'll just say it's about little animals.