Roger Bastida recommends a "surprising" historical novel

BarcelonaThe youth of Roger Bastida (l'Hospitalet de Llobregat, 1990) does not prevent him from enjoying contemporary Catalan classics such as Pep Coll (Pessonada, 1949), the author recommended to read this summer based on one of his emblematic novels.

"It's worth returning to The young ladies of Lourdes [Proa, 2008] for two reasons: the first is because I believe it is a more than deserved Sant Jordi prize, especially now that the prestige of some major awards is being questioned due to certain bets on media figures –begins the author of Passeig de Gràcia (Comanegra), Santa Eulàlia award and one of the best-selling books in Catalan during the first half of the year–. But above all, I champion Coll's novel for another reason. For a long time, I've had a personal crusade against the stereotyped historical novel that we've ended up building here, almost like an industry: highly coded covers, recurring themes, and a certain segmentation of the audience. Books about medieval kings and knights and ancient Rome are primarily for a male audience, and women who are "ahead of their time," who think and act according to the moral categories of the 21st century, are for a female audience.

The young ladies of Lourdes, by Pep Coll, goes in another direction: "It's a novel that takes place in the mid-19th century, but it shuns all those commonplaces – adds Bastida–. The author focuses on a character as endearing and complex as Bernadette Soubirous [a shepherdess who claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary on several occasions] from a much more human, original, and, if the word may be repeated, literary perspective, without falling into the usual formulas of the genre. It seems to me a demonstration that historical novels can still surprise when they move away from the most trodden paths".