There are two great creative engines that keep appearing in the works of playwright and director Llàtzer Garcia: siblings and death. Regarding the former, they had appeared in other shows by the creator such as La pols (2014), which also explored the loss of a father. And he had also spoken of death in Al final, les visions (2022). Now Garcia approaches both themes from a different perspective: the occurrence of an unexpected accident that turns the lives of three more or less united sisters into a tragedy. The show is titled Grans bardisses and last year it won the Quim Masó award. After cancelling its premiere at the last Grec festival, it arrives on October 11th at the Teatre de Salt, as part of the Temporada Alta festival, and from February 25th it will be seen at the Teatre Lliure.

Adania Shibli (Arab al-Shibli, Palestine, 1974) asks that her books not be read from a political angle but rather a literary one, yet it is practically impossible to decouple the stories she recounts from the current situation in Palestine. With her previous novel, Minor Detail (Navona, 2024), Shibli was a finalist for the National Book Award and the International Booker Prize. She also experienced the controversy firsthand, when the Frankfurt Book Fair cancelled her. Her new book, Deception (La Magrana / Random House, translated from Arabic to Catalan by Mohammad Bittari) travels to the Palestine of the 90s through the hands of two nameless young people. Each of them carries out a clandestine action: the boy is caught and locked in prison, the girl is never caught. Based on these events, Shibli traces their existences and constructs a poignant story that reflects on the search for an individual future in a situation of oppression and collective exclusion.

The new U2 album, Carnaval de Luz (Island Records), will reach stores on November 13th and will be the band's first with new material in nine years. The album, which was announced this Thursday, will consist of 12 songs that explore themes such as spirituality, friendship, freedom, and resilience. Among the collaborations on the album will be a duet between Bono and Dolly Parton, who passed away at the end of August. The track, titled Torn, which revolves around the breaking of family ties, has turned out to be the legendary singer's last recorded vocal performance.

Awards always catch Oriol Pla working. This Wednesday at noon, while he was at the San Sebastián Festival presenting the film Esta soledad, by Javier Giner (Yo, adicto), the actor received a call from the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, to tell him that he has been awarded the National Theater Prize, which is granted by the Ministry of Culture and is endowed with 30,000 euros.

Playwright and director Josep Maria Miró (Prats de Lluçanès, 1977) says that, somewhat unintentionally, with his works he does nothing more than accumulate minorities. Through theater, Miró—one of the most international Catalan authors—has spoken about the issue of gender, identity, and language. And now, with his latest production, El Cadell, he delves into his peasant origins. Starring Mercè Aránega, Rosa Renom, and Marc Tarrida, the play will be performed from September 30 to November 1 at the Sala Petita of the National Theater of Catalonia (TNC).

Shortly before November 7, 1925, the educator and writer Henri Roorda (Brussels, 1870 - Lausanne, 1925) left a note for a very dear friend in which he announced that he would soon take his own life. Shortly before, Roorda had written a short book that he titled My Suicide, in which he laid out the reasons for living and for dying. Twenty years ago, Mario Gas and Fernando Bernués turned that text into a stage monologue that premiered in Madrid and ran for a hundred performances, but did not reach Barcelona. Now the two artists have set out to settle that debt and have relaunched the production, which premieres this Friday at the Sala Beckett under the title of Cheerful Pessimism (My Suicide). And it will be on stage until October 10.

The writer and theater critic Marcos Ordóñez has died at the age of 69. Author of a score of books –including essays, memoirs, and fiction–, Ordóñez worked for decades as a theater critic. He worked at El Correo Catalán (1983-1985), ABC (1987-1991), Avui (1994-2000) and for the last 21 years for the newspaper El País, until he retired in 2021 due to health problems.

Through a dozen acts and performances, Àfora Focus delves this year into the debate generated by the rise of artificial intelligence and how people can respond to it. The programming for this year's cycle, which is conceived as a hub of thought, invites artists and philosophers to reflect on intelligences. "The plural integrates the best of the human condition. Unlike AI, there is no single human intelligence, and these are defined by sensitivity," explains Fèlix Riera, director of the Fundació Romea, which promotes Àfora Focus. From his point of view, "the only way to talk about AI is to show that natural intelligence is the answer." For this reason, Àfora Focus proposes a series of artistic actions that will question the role of utopias and memory, the capacity for dialogue between people, uncertainties, and identity. All programming is free—only prior registration is required—and takes place at the Teatre Romea. The first guest artists are ventriloquist Jaime Figueroa and playwright María Folguera, who this very Monday will build a dialogue about loneliness and ventriloquism.

The latest piece by dancer, choreographer and performer María Jurado (Murcia, 1996) is born from a feeling that has haunted her in recent times. "I feel like I am constantly projecting myself onto an infinite road where I never stop parading, but which leads nowhere. I want to go to a place that I don't know what it is and I never end up getting there either," says the artist. Wrapped in this feeling of confusion, one day she imagined an angel stepping onto the stage and, from this image, she began to build Angelical.

What was Antoni Gaudí like before becoming a genius? What is the secret for a child to develop their genius? The answers can be found in Gaudí. The Awakening of a Genius, a new musical promoted by Casa Batlló and produced by Trílope, which will be seen starting November 15th at the Teatre Poliorama and is framed within the Gaudí Year, which commemorates the centenary of his death. Starring Estel Aparicio in the role of Gaudí when he was still a child, the show seeks to make the architect's childhood known to all audiences, especially children and young people. "Gaudí was a sickly child. He suffered from rheumatism, and for many seasons he could not go to school. The chronic illness forced him to take care of himself all his life," points out Alfredo Ruiz, co-creator of the production together with Cristina Estarelles.

Director and playwright Albert Arribas will bring, for the first time, a text by writer Toni Sala to the theater. It is La paret de vidre (The Glass Wall), a chapter from the author from Sant Feliu's latest novel, Escenaris (L'Altra, 2025). Actress Mara Jiménez will star in the piece, which will be performed from January 19 to February 14 at the Heartbreak Hotel in Barcelona. "The whole book is written as if it were theater. This chapter is already an autonomous monologue, the best one from my point of view," explains Arribas. The text gives voice to one of the characters in the novel, Olga, during a late-night call with the novel's protagonist. According to Arribas, the monologue "is a cry of despair, very anti-humanist, about the fact of living in a system that does not allow us to get excited about anything".

Inflatable mattresses, messy pillows, open suitcases and scattered clothes have been filling the lobby of the Teatre Lliure de Gràcia for a week. The entrance windows are covered with cardboard, and anyone who doesn't know what's going on might think that one of Barcelona's most iconic venues has been occupied. Behind those responsible for this action is the Col·lectiu Miserable, led by director and playwright Miquel Mas de Fiol. When the director of the Lliure, Julio Manrique, proposed that he revisit La bella Helena as a tribute to the iconic 1979 show to celebrate the theater's 50th anniversary, Mas de Fiol and the entire company decided to go all out and camp in the hall. From this process will come Tot fent 'La bella Helena', which will be performed from September 22 to October 18 at the Lliure de Gràcia.

The writer Sebastià Alzamora (Llucmajor, 1972) has been awarded the National Poetry Prize, which is granted by the Ministry of Culture and is endowed with 30,000 euros. The jury has chosen his work Sala Augusta seguit de Llengua materna (Proa, 2025) for "its ability to transition, with identical genius, from the impassioned language of historical denunciation to the delicacy of domestic space". They also highlight that in this collection of poems, which is an evocation of Alzamora's memory, the author "weaves together with mastery collective history and family intimacy". "They called me shortly before lunch, while I was working on my new novel from home, in Llucmajor –comments the Majorcan author and ARA columnist by phone–. I picked up because I thought it would be about work, but I could not have expected it to be María José Gálvez, the Director General for Books of the Ministry of Culture. She informed me of the jury's deliberations, which had just concluded".

"I felt the need to explain my life to someone, to review it for myself, to value it and to share it," writes Monika Zgustova (Prague, 1957) in her latest novel, The Translator of Haikus (Galàxia Gutenberg, 2026). The writer and translator attributes the phrase to the protagonist, Jana, a woman born in Prague in 1939 who leaves her country to start a new life in the United States. Jana is the alter ego of her mother, lives under a communist regime and faces a profound dilemma: what should come first, ethical principles or the safety of her children? Through her, Zgustova fictionalizes the story of the exile of her parents, herself, and her brother with a novel that faces a harsh reality head-on and, at the same time, seeks reconciliation.

Oriol Canals (Barcelona, 1978) took his first steps as a writer in 2013 with Fills de mala mare (Base). Since then, he has built a path in crime fiction that includes the titles Diví (Base, 2018), Els sentinelles de la llibertat (Rosa dels Vents, 2023) and No dormiràs (Rosa dels Vents, 2024). With the latter, Canals –who besides writing is the business director of ARA– placed himself among the best-selling writers of 2025 in Catalonia. Now, in the novel El cinquè cor (Rosa dels Vents, 2026), Canals unfolds a new story starring a doctor who is a world authority in the field of cardiology. The diagnosis of a serious illness will coincide with his 50th birthday and with a macabre gift that will set the pace of the story: a box with three human hearts and two empty spaces. Through this protagonist, an investigative journalist, and a Mossos d'Esquadra officer, Canals articulates a plot through which he provides an X-ray of evil, unbridled ambition, and contemporary fears.

What has happened with The Price of Being Born (Proa/Temas de Hoy), the fourth novel by Laura Gost (Sa Pobla, 1993), is quite unusual. Before publishing it –it arrives this Wednesday in bookstores–, it already has seven translations lined up and an audiovisual production underway by a North American company. From the very first pages of the book, it is clear that we are facing a well-rounded thriller, full of twists, with a voracious story that takes place in a dystopian future and that maintains narrative tension thanks to a surgical pulse and precision. The book starts from the desire of Rai and Liza to be parents. The couple lives in an overpopulated world in which, to carry out a pregnancy, one must first obtain a "replacement": someone who yields their own life for the child.

"In a complicated, hostile moment with little hopeful news, this year we want to reclaim the act of celebrating," says the director of Fira Tàrrega, Anna Giribet. The event, one of the most relevant in the world of performing arts in Catalonia, will take place from September 10th to 13th and will host almost sixty shows by established artists and emerging talents. We have chosen 10 that focus on the theme of this 46th edition: the party and the gathering.

The story of Tania Head struck North American society in the early 2000s, when Americans were just recovering after the September 11, 2001 attacks against the Twin Towers of New York and the Pentagon. For years, Head posed as a survivor of the attack, appeared publicly on numerous occasions explaining the false story of her trauma, led guided tours of New York's ground zero, and even became president of the World Trade Center Survivors' Network, the association of attack survivors. In 2007, an investigative report by The New York Times revealed that everything Head had explained was a lie: she neither worked in the Twin Towers, nor had a husband who had died in the attack, nor had she been rescued by a man with a red scarf. After that revelation, Tania Head disappeared.

Isabel Olesti's latest book (Reus, 1957), Les dones i les ombres (Proa), is not a historical novel, nor a memoir, nor a war novel. And, despite this, the story takes place between the 1930s and 1940s in Catalonia, starts from family memories, and is profoundly marked by the Civil War. Olesti's mother lived through the conflict sheltered in a farmhouse in Baix Camp, along with her parents and sisters, and surrounded by a group of people who, at first, did not know each other at all. Many years after those experiences, the writer – author of books such as El marit invisible (Columna, 1999) and La pell de l'aigua (Proa, 2012) – has transformed them into a fictional story starring two families who coexist in a forced daily life, between uncertainty, fear, and desire.

It was after a conversation with her eldest son that Ester Invernon (Mataró, 1973) decided to put all her eggs in the literature basket. "He had arrived home angry with the world, totally pre-teen, and I told him: 'Many days I don't like what I do and I put up with it,'" explains Invernon. That night she couldn't stop thinking about the phrase and, the next morning, while having breakfast, she announced to her family that she had decided to change her life. "I told them that in a year I would publish a book and I got to work on it," she recalls. Thus began the career of a writer who has already brought five novels to life – including Un estiu per estimar (La Campana, 2021) and Ningú ens va dir que seria fàcil (La Campana, 2023) – and has sold over 20,000 books. Her latest story, titled Després de tu, has now arrived in bookstores, and is disconnected from the Trilogia dels Albons which has established Invernon as a successful author in Catalan.