Marta Orriols recommends Mar García Puig's latest book

BarcelonaPhilologist and former member of the Congress of Deputies for En Comú Podemos, Mar García Puig (Barcelona, 1977) surprised a lot with his first book, The history of vertebrates –which received the Ciutat de Barcelona Award in the essay, humanities, and history categories–, where she openly shared her experience with the little-explored connection between motherhood and mental health. Two years later, the Barcelona-born author has captivated Marta Orriols with his second book, This is so scary, published, like its predecessor, by La Magrana.

"It's an unclassifiable book about language and how we come together to live and fly over anguish and darkness," says Orriols, who presented the novel this year. On the other side of fear (Proa), which was very well received by readers. The writing is meticulous and intelligent. And it exudes a very well-found balance between luck and planning, essay and beauty." The main theme ofThis is so scary It is the tendency we have to speak with metaphors: "We pronounce a metaphor at least every twenty-five words," writes García Puig. "That is, about six metaphors per minute. In an hour of uninterrupted dialogue, that would be called three hundred and sixty metaphors." Metaphor, and by extension language as a constructor of realities, is here a sustained excuse that the author uses to tell us about her vital moment—a separated woman with two twin children—and her love for Gothic literature written by women, that literature of the disturbance of the 19th century that she links to the current literature of the self. The reader will travel with the author to the prefabricated world of Disneyland Paris, where she spends a few days with her children, making recurring visits to the haunted mansion. And they will accompany her to the Buenos Aires Book Fair, where she goes for work and without offspring, and where what interests her most is the Recoleta Cemetery.