When the Irish writer Audrey Magee (Enniskerry, 1966) was 18 years old, she went to live in Germany for a few months. "I had grown up with a very simplistic Anglo-American view of the war and of Germans: the idea that everything that had happened was because 'they were German,' as if it were an inherent condition and not the result of a political structure," she explains. It was the beginning of an idea she would mull over until she wrote her first novel, The undertaking, which has been translated into Catalan by Josefina Caball and published under the title El compromís (Periscopi / Sexto Piso). Living among Germans dismantled her prejudices: “I realized that they were extremely kind people, who had no horns or devil's tail.” It was the 80s and there were things that the author of La colònia (Periscopi) recognized because they were shared. "There was the silence that I understood perfectly because I had grown up with it, and the silent reproach of children who had inherited the legacy of the Holocaust," she says.

Upon the end of the Civil War, the Special Documentation Delegation of the Francoist apparatus confiscated tons of administrative documentation from the Generalitat and various entities with a clear repressive purpose. Among this documentation were the papers of the Generalitat's Subsidy Office, with the name, political affiliation, place of birth, and the fronts and columns where 37,002 militiamen and women had fought. Whether men or women, and regardless of their rank, they earned 10 pesetas daily. This documentation, after a long and intense mobilization of Catalan civil society, returned to Catalonia in 2006. It was the first intake, of 500 bundles, that arrived at the National Archive of Catalonia (ANC). This collection has made it possible for the Memorial Democràtic, with the collaboration of the archive, to create a public database of militiamen."With this tool, relatives and researchers will be able to find the life trajectories of their relatives," assures historian Gonzalo Berger, doctor in contemporary history from the University of Barcelona and specialist in militias. Berger has led the research that culminates eleven years of research initiated with his doctoral thesis. The human value of this tool is evident in testimonies like that of Marta Domper, who for years searched for proof of the history of her great-uncle, Joaquim Domper. "Sometimes I had even asked myself if he had really existed – she explains–. At home, my great-uncle had always been spoken of as a hero. He was from the CNT and went as a volunteer to fight against the rebels." Afterwards, he went to France to fight with the Resistance and never returned to Spain.

In the late 14th century, Barcelona had a network of care centers for the most disadvantaged, but they had become too small and inefficient. The black plague and crop-damaging plagues took a terrible toll: around 1340 the city had about 40,000 inhabitants, but by the mid-15th century the figure had fallen to 20,000; that is, it had lost 50% of its inhabitants in just one century. "More than an absolute degradation, the real problem was the lack of efficiency," explains Antoni Conejo, an art historian specializing in medieval architecture and hospitals. Faced with this, it was proposed to merge six of these small centers into a single institution: the Hospital de la Santa Creu. The first stone was laid on April 17, 1401, 625 years ago. The official foundation took place on September 5 of the same year with the authorization of Pope Benedict XIII. The great hospital was one of the first, if not the earliest, on the European continent to promote a merger of this type. The black plague and plagues that damaged crops caused real havoc: around 1340 the city had about 40,000 inhabitants, but by the mid-15th century the figure had fallen to 20,000; that is, it had lost 50% of its inhabitants in just one century. "More than an absolute degradation, the real problem was the lack of efficiency," explains Antoni Conejo, an art historian specializing in medieval architecture and hospitals. Faced with this, it was proposed to merge six of these small centers into a single institution: the Hospital de la Santa Creu. The first stone was laid on April 17, 1401, 625 years ago. The official foundation took place on September 5 of the same year with the authorization of Pope Benedict XIII. The great hospital was one of the first, if not the earliest, on the European continent to promote a merger of this type.

When the old municipal courts on Passeig de Lluís Companys were demolished, between 2018 and 2019, a large necropolis from the 9th and 10th centuries with 123 burials was discovered. At that time, no associated temple was found. Nevertheless, documentation from the 12th century indicates that the church of Santa Eulàlia del Camp could be found in this area of Barcelona, where some sources—although there is a great debate open—claim that the remains of the city's historical patron saint were originally buried. Those findings are just the first chapter. The excavations will continue for two more years. When archaeologists have unearthed and documented everything the site hides, at the beginning of 2028, the construction of the new headquarters of the Barcelona Court will begin. The new building will not be a reality until 2031. "We have to excavate about 6,000 square meters and, so far, we have done 2,000," explains the head of the excavations, Jordi Chorén. Josep Pujades, head of the Archaeology Service of Barcelona, highlights that the necropolis is much more extensive and, in fact, its limits are unknown.

History has left little trace of the Ceretans, apart from the toponym of Cerdanya. One of the few clues available was provided by the Greco-Roman historian Cassius Dio, who explains how, in 39 BC, the Ceretans revolted. He mentions them in relation to the setback suffered by the governor of the province of Hispania Citerior, Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus, in the Pyrenees. His men suffered an ambush, fled helter-skelter, and abandoned their lieutenant. Calvinus severely punished the troops by mustering the army and executing one in every ten soldiers by lot. The severity of the punishment was what sparked the interest of historians, as it had not been applied for a long time. Once discipline was restored, Calvinus marched against the Ceretans, definitively subdued them, and confiscated their gold to celebrate his triumph in Rome in 36 BC. Afterwards, the Roman commander played a rather important role in both Emporiae and Tarraco.

Between May 27 and 30, 1976, the paranimph of the University of Barcelona brought together more than three thousand women who crowded a space where current legislation today indicates a maximum permitted capacity of four hundred people. The success of the First Catalan Women's Days was overwhelming. Women came from a dictatorship that had relegated them and aspired to many changes. Furthermore, they went hand in hand with the most diverse social and political sectors. Fifty years after that milestone, the Filmoteca de Catalunya has not wanted to limit itself to an exercise in historical nostalgia, but rather proposes a dialogue between generations and an inspiration to imagine futures. The exhibition Filmic Feminisms 1976-2026, curated by Alexandra Laudo, with the advice of Anna Solà and Marta Selva and the film editing by Pilar Monsell, demonstrates how the camera can break down walls and inspire new futures. It can be visited until November 29.

After a breakup, the protagonist of Principi, mig, fi (Angle/Feltrinelli; with Catalan translation by Elisabet Ràfols Sagués), goes to Sicily with her teenage daughter and a tile from a mosaic depicting the god Proteus that her grandmother "stole" from a dig site. With a host of mythological and classical references, the mother seeks how to start anew and establish a new bond with her daughter. The writer Valeria Luiselli (Mexico City, 1983) is also the author ofLos niños perdidos (2016), in which she recounts her experience as a translator for migrant children in New York, Los ingrávidos (2011) and Arxiu dels infants perduts (2024).

In 218 BC, the Carthaginian general Hannibal undertook a daring action to surprise his bitter enemy, Rome: he crossed the Alps with 40,000 soldiers, 7,000 horses, and 37 war elephants with the intention of invading Italy. For centuries, historians and archaeologists have debated which mountain pass the Carthaginian army used. An interdisciplinary study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has launched a new theory with a highly innovative approach: bioenergetics. The research, led by the University of Oxford and Friedrich Schiller University Jena, indicates that the Col de la Traversette, located at an altitude of 2,914 meters on the current border between France and Italy, was the chosen route because it required less energy consumption, especially for the elephants.

AI is very tempting. You draft a quick post and, before publishing it on social media, click the magic button: "Improve my post." In the blink of an eye, you have a theoretically more understandable text. You find it magnificent, accept it, and share it. You feel it captures what you wanted to explain and that it hasn't practically changed the content or modified what you wanted to say, only made it more attractive. But is it really your opinion?

Karim Kattan (Jerusalem, 1989) is a Palestinian writer, doctor in comparative literature from Paris University, who explores through poetic fiction exile, memory, and violence, but also love and eroticism. He has lived in France since he was 18, but his family remains in Palestine. In his acclaimed debut novel, Le palais de deux collines (2021; The Palace of Two Hills in the Spanish edition published by Deleste),there is the return of an exile to his village and to the family palace full of ghosts and stories of a past that seems unreal. In L'Éden à l'aube (2024; Eden at Dawn in the Txalaparta edition) he narrates a story of love and desire between two men traveling under a hurricane wind that buries Palestine under the sand. His third novel, to be published in France in September, is even more apocalyptic.

La Redenta, the protagonist of the novel Els dies de vidre (Amsterdam), by Nicoletta Verna (Forlì, 1976), is born on the same day that the socialist politician Giacomo Matteotti is assassinated by the fascist squads. “It is a crucial moment,” recalls the author, because that June of 1924 Mussolini assumed moral and historical responsibility for the crime before Parliament. “It was the beginning of the dictatorship. The birth of La Redenta becomes a tragic succession: if Matteotti was the political victim of fascism, she will be the civil victim,” says Verna.

The Parliament demands "immediately" the transfer to the Generalitat of the properties and health facilities located in Catalonia that continue to be state-owned. The motion, promoted by ERC and approved with the votes of all groups except Vox and the PP, which voted against it, gives the Catalan executive a maximum of six months to prepare and present a fully updated inventory of all properties of the Generalitat's health system that are not its own. The report must specify the legal status, the registry status, the estimated asset value, the net book value of the assets, and the investments made by the Catalan administration.

Almost a decade after the ambitious project to convert the central nave of the Can Batlló industrial complex into a large agora open to neighbors and the sole headquarters of all Barcelona's archives was presented, the municipal government has taken a step forward to unblock a long-claimed infrastructure. "With this announcement, what we have had to wait for so many years, we make it happen. Work begins in the first quarter of next year," highlighted the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni.

When it's 21 years since the law on the return of the Salamanca documents and four of the democratic memory law, the process of restitution of documentary heritage plundered by Francoism continues to be stalled. According to the Dignity Commission, around 35,000 documents still remain to be returned to Catalonia, a figure representing approximately 5% of the total fund. Faced with this situation, the entity has urged the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, to convene the joint State-Generalitat commission to unblock the transfers with the Ministry of Culture.

The last twenty years of archaeological research have completely transformed the traditional view of Tartessos. Excavation work at the Casas del Turuñuelo site, in Guareña (Badajoz), has uncovered a bronze chariot from the 5th century BC with a structure and decoration absolutely unprecedented in the Iberian Peninsula. According to the initial interpretations of the research team, the only parallels for a piece of this kind are found in ancient Etruria, in present-day Italy, from where it could have originally come. The discovery confirms that it was a complex civilization connected with the great powers of the Mediterranean, which inhabited the southwestern peninsula between the 8th and 5th centuries BC.

Alongside the invention of the first stone tools, between 20,000 and 30,000 years ago, there was another great silent revolution: the invention of rope and sewing. In the archaeological sites of this period, ornaments made of bone, teeth, and shells with extremely fine perforations have been found, which were sewn onto clothing. The most conclusive evidence of this birth of textiles is a sculpture: the Venus of Lespugue (France), a statuette made of mammoth bone dated around 20,000 BC, which shows a woman dressed in a skirt (sculpted) made of long strips of twine suspended from a belt at the back of her body.

What happens when women take to the streets? This is what the exhibition Vindran les dones. 150 anys de lluites als carrers de Barcelona, which can be seen at the Barcelona History Museum (Muhba) in Plaça del Rei until September 13, attempts to answer. The exhibition recovers the invisible thread that unites 19th-century anarchists with 21st-century young women who claim the right to decent housing, all through the eyes of some eighty writers, artists, and activists who have lived in the Catalan capital.

After fifty years of state, autonomous, and municipal governments of all political stripes, there are still educational centers with names of Francoist leaders and from the dictatorship (1923-1930) of Miguel Primo de Rivera. It is not just a matter of slowness, but also controversy. This Monday, the newspaper El País reported that in Alcántara (Cáceres) controversy has erupted because the educational community has been fighting for a year to remove the name of the dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera from the facade of the public school. The school has encountered threats from the far-right, insults to teachers, and obstruction from the City Council (PP) and the Junta de Extremadura (PP-Vox). The argument of the popular mayor, Mónica Granados, for not proceeding with the name change is to preserve "social peace".

The British Mary Beard (Much Wenlock, 1955) has popularized the history of Ancient Rome through television, books, and lectures worldwide, and her works have been translated into over 35 languages. At 71, this emerita professor from Cambridge remains tireless and optimistic. She has just published Classics without filters (Edicions 62 / Crítica; with Catalan translation by Joan Solé), which she dedicates to the curator who, when she was little, opened a display case at the British Museum to show her a fossilized bread. In the book she talks about her career, but also about how both sides have used the Roman past. Among other things, she argues why the far-right is mistaken and what the statues admired by supremacists hide.

A few weeks ago, ARA published a report that highlighted that all the major public hospitals of the Catalan Health Institute and the historic primary care centers (CAP) are attached to the Generalitat. However, in many cases, ownership does not belong to the Catalan government, but to the General Treasury of Social Security (TGSS). This situation forces the Generalitat to assume the maintenance, renovation, and investment costs of facilities it does not own. This Wednesday, ERC deputy Carles Campuzano, following the ARA article and the research by historian Neus Morán, brought this issue to Parliament, and the Minister of Economy, Alícia Romero, has committed to negotiating with the state for the transfer of ownership of the buildings.