"I still regret having bought tobacco from Terenci Moix two weeks before he died."

BarcelonaMystery in the Gothic Quarter, the new novel by Sergio Villa-Sanjuán (Barcelona, ​​​​1957), begins with the appearance of a ghost in the protagonist of the story, Víctor Balmoral, a veteran journalist, single and with a "very disciplined prostate." The supernatural encounter takes place the same morning that a corpse is discovered in the Sallerich palace, which after having belonged for a century to exploit it "tourism and culturally."

"The novel combines two investigative plots," says the author from the exclusive Círculo del Liceo, a private club founded in 1847 that is one of the settings in the book. The first has to do with the present of the Gothic Quarter and how the past resonates. hippie who disappeared in the 80s and who allows me to connect with the aspirations, achievements and failures of his generation, which is also mine." Since the late 70s, Vila-Sanjuán has been one of the most influential Catalan cultural journalists, first fromThe Catalan Post Office and The Universal News, but above all at the head of the supplement Culture/ies of The Vanguard, which she has directed for almost three decades. "There are some of us who still retain the desire to do things: others have had rather strange biographies," she comments.

With Mystery in the Gothic Quarter, which comes eight years after its predecessor novel, The Casabona Report (Destino, 2017), Vila-Sanjuán has received the Fernando Lara Award, worth 120,000 euros and published by Planeta. "I was very excited to win, not only for the obvious reasons, but because the first thing I received was Terenci Moix, in 1996, with The bitter gift of beauty –remember–. Since I read The day Marilyn diedMoix left a mark on me for understanding the narrative of Barcelona. At that time, I wrote him a letter that he never answered, although the first time I interviewed him, he assured me that he still had it." Vila-Sanjuán and Moix remained friends until the end of the author's life. Don't say it was a dream"Two weeks before he died, I went to see him and he asked me to buy him some tobacco. At first, I said no, because tobacco was killing him, but he told me that if I didn't do it, I would ask someone else and get it anyway." –explains–. I still regret buying him some tobacco."

The disappearance of "a true friend"

Is Mystery in the Gothic Quarter A novel critical of today's Barcelona? "I'm making fewer and fewer moral judgments. Tourism affects all the big, beautiful cities. It won't be resolved in the short term," he opines. In the book, "some gentlemen decide to turn the Gothic Quarter into a homogeneous, medieval-style area, with the hope that it will become a reference point throughout Europe." Víctor Balmoral, the protagonist of this thriller, has rather negative opinions about the digital transformation of journalism and is reluctant to retire. "One of the important questions I ask myself in the novel has to do with friendship," the author continues. "There's a moment when you wonder what you're missing, when a true friend disappears." The ghost who converses with Balmoral is inspired by a friend with whom Vila-Sanjuán always argued and who died.

If the journalist and novelist had to define today's Barcelona with a single word, it would be this: "stimulating." "I would like the city to regain the intensity of the Gauche Divine years or the pre-Olympic era in the future," he comments. "Those were two periods of great creativity. The city is strong enough to return to that splendor."