Quimi Portet begins Songs in Bello Limousin (1987-2020) (The Second Periphery) as if he were Pla: "We Catalans are generally considered to be rather modest cattle [...]. If I had been intelligent, I would have been a plausible cynic, but [...] I have had to settle for being what they call "a joker"... The lyrics of Portet's songs in Catalan come with biographical-philosophical introductions that contradict this: Portet shines for his intelligence.
One December night, the ARA editorial chat room was shaken: our Opinion Editor, Toni Güell, had just won the Mercè Rodoreda Prize for his first book of short stories. Nobody knew anything, but we should have seen it coming: all that apologetic pacing around the newspaper's desks and that Franciscan authority with which he tames the egos of dozens of columnists is only within the reach of the most solid individuals. Elephants (Empúries) you will find eight stories bathed in reality and fantasy and written in a Catalan that heals so many botched jobs like potinegen.
You also know Jordi Nopca, because he writes the best literary reviews and interviews in this country. One day he disappeared from the newspaper for a while, due to paternity leave. What worlds did our protagonist discover during his absence? The answer is in The future is a small flame (Proa), a novel that narrates the bewilderment of a contemporary forty-year-old facing the most important event of his life.
The production was presented at the Poliorama on Thursday. The mothers, by Fel Faixedas and Carles Xuriguera. Everything they say in the advertisement is true: you burst out laughing, you get emotional, and you think of your mother, to whom you'd like to say so many things, but it's already too late. Excellent script, effective staging, and mature acting.
