Saint George is also the festival of diversity (and that's why it's called Saint George's Day, not Book Day or anything else). This means it's also a festival for books that perhaps aren't seen everywhere during the —fierce, let's not kid ourselves— promotional campaign leading up to the Big Day. That they are seen less doesn't mean they are any less good: on the contrary, there are more excellent books that don't get to be known by what we call the general public than those that do. Diversity, precisely, occurs within the part of the forest that we don't perceive at first glance. “Oh, if only I had married the lighthouse keeper!” is a phrase that Joan Pons Bover, author of the novel Com voleu, germans, que canti (which takes its title from a verse of a traditional Ibizan song, popularized by the great Uc) heard his mother say on many occasions. The woman was referring to a lover she once had, with a profession that was already so literary from the outset as that of a lighthouse keeper at the Mola de Formentera lighthouse. From this true family anecdote, Joan Pons Bover constructs a double narrative: one in the present, with a brother and sister sharing their old age in a nursing home, and one in the past, focusing on the youth of these two characters. Published by the Illa Edicions imprint, Com voleu, germans, que canti is a defense of the value of memory and an exploration of affections as the foundations of people's identity, as well as an immersion into recent history, from the War onwards, of the Balearic and Pityusic Islands, islands that have never been calm and have often been quite brutal. Pons Bover had already published two very good novels (Un incendi al paradís, in 2016, and Tània i el vius, in 2019). Crafted with the consciousness and rigor of the finest craftsmanship, Com voleu, germans, que canti? is the best of the three and incorporates well-learned lessons from Antoni Vidal Ferrando (a teacher, friend, and neighbor of the literarily prodigious town of Santanyí, also home to Blai Bonet, Bernat Vidal i Tomàs, and Antònia Vicens).Primer foren les estrelles is the first novel by the young Joan Moragues Roca, and it functions as a thread that links the sleepless story (of love?) between a nurse and a terminally ill patient with the case of the scientist who discovered the applications of mustard gas without being sufficiently aware of its potential for warfare. These main stories accommodate other small and large stories, loose ends or plot points, ideas, and flashes of brilliance, which could have risked becoming scattered but which take shape and meaning in the reader's eyes, who is pleased to finally read something truly different, thanks in part to a lyrical style that fully embraces confidence in the Catalan language. Published by Angle and winner of the Premi Ciutat de Palma Llorenç Villalonga (an award also won by Joan Pons Bover with Tània i els vius), Primer foren les estrelles is the debut of an author who can literally do whatever he wants in the future, and then we will be proud to have followed him from his first book.
