It is well known that the experiment of the Second Republic sparked interest beyond our borders. But the Civil War, the work of the military who rose up against democracy in July 1936, dashed any revolutionary ambitions. Although those who threw themselves into defending the country from fascism, whether with weapons or with instruments like the pen or the camera, did not know it then.

"If I use the first person plural it's because the genealogy of the daughters of the Spanish periphery isn't writing itself," says journalist Noelia Ramírez (Esplugues de Llobregat, 1982) in Nobody was expecting me here, which is subtitled Notes on social declassingAnd she cites, among others, the Madrid native Alana S. Portero and its excellent The bad habitBecause this genealogy is being written by authors from subaltern classes who offer us their life stories, in autobiographical or fictional form, fiction always rooted in reality.

There are two types of writers: those with imagination and those without, though this doesn't determine their literary worth. Those who have imagination are capable of expanding reality and creating worlds governed by their own rules. Mar Bosch Oliveras (Girona, 1981) was an imaginative author and we already knew from her novels that she had what is called "her own world" You will come with me after the flood (Comanegra, 2018) or The effervescent woman (Univers, 2020), and the stories collected in Lessons from the abyss They confirm it.

As a general rule, first novels don't stray too far from their authors' lives. There's a natural tendency to begin by explaining what one has experienced firsthand, not always successfully. Exceptions aside –Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, Nothing of Carmen Laforet either The watchman in the rye field of J.D. Salinger– these first contributions to literature do not usually have much literary interest because writers are not born, they are made.

If years ago we lamented the almost complete absence of books that addressed exclusively female issues such as motherhood, menstruation, perinatal grief, or menopause, now, so to speak, we can complain of the exact opposite, because everywhere you look there are a dozen that deal with them. I say this to provoke, obviously, because "feminizing" literature was absolutely necessary.

A few days ago I woke up to some sad news: Spanish Radio and Television was cancelling the program Cultures 2which had been broadcast on La 2 for three years and which Tania Sarrias had presented with proven competence for the last two. A stimulating program with a feminist perspective that in its first episode declared its desire to be "the house of culture," and in which the Andalusian poet Aurora Luque christened culture as "Fertilizing ideas and harvesting beauty"

Often, those of us who practice literary criticism rack our brains trying to find a good description of the perspective from which the authors of the works we review write. A girl in the cityIn her latest book, Mercè Ibarz (Saidí, 1954), the author herself explains: "I write from my own experience, in the first person, thanks to contemporary art and documentary." And that is precisely what she has done since then. The withdrawn land (Cuadernos Crema, 1993) until the recent essay Don't think, just look (Anagrama, 2024) passing through In the city under construction (Cream Notebooks, 2002) and Street Fever (Crema Notebooks, 2005), renamed together as Urban Tales in the edition that Anagrama put into circulation three years ago.

Certainly, the 20th century is not the century of Einstein or the atomic bomb; it is the century of women. Here in Catalonia, the 20th century was prolific in feminist demonstrations, which we need to understand in order to build an even more feminist 21st century. Provided, of course, that we don't want to perpetuate the mess that is the world today.

There are authors with their own unique stamp, and others without. Montse Barderi's (Sabadell, 1969) is the philosophical tone, that reflective way of conveying the stories that characterizes her novels, whatever they talk about. The sea, which shines and laughs–a title taken from a verse by Maragall– goes further and flirts with the fable, which is the simplest form of philosophy. In this case, the author doesn't seem driven by any didactic purpose—which would be narratively counterproductive—but by the mere desire to investigate the human condition, which is no small feat.

As a child, the American writer Willa Cather (1873-1947), winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1922, lived on a ranch in Nebraska, in the middle of the American continent, which allowed her to experience the life of the pioneers, that of those who are part of the generation of baby boom We glimpsed them in the movies that aired in the afternoon when there were only two channels. Soap operas serve, among many other things, to portray a time we haven't lived through. A lost woman We delve into the reality of towns and small cities that grew thanks to the arrival of the railroad, where winters were long and life wasn't always easy. The protagonist is Marian, an attractive woman from warm California who stands out in this socially rigid environment of rigid rules. She is married to Captain Forrester, a man respected by all and whom she loves, but she finds the place deeply boring. "You see, I have nothing to do here. I can't exercise. I don't know how to skate; we didn't skate in California, and my ankles are weak. I've always danced, in the winter; in Colorado Springs, they dance a lot. You can't imagine how much I miss it," ~BK_SLT_

Willa Cather was always interested in the position women occupied in the world, and she makes it clear here. What does a woman do when she has to live in a place where women are only allowed a discreet background if she wants something more? "When Mrs. Forrester looked at you, you immediately realized you were under her spell. It was instantaneous, it pierced the thickest armor." Sweet Water is the name of the town where they live, and it's not easy to have a promising future, or even to receive minimally interesting visitors.

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In June 2022, the American Rebecca Solnit (1961) was unable to come to Barcelona, ​​where she was due to speak at the CCCB, and we had to settle for seeing and hearing her through a big screen. Three years later, this June he was there in person., in this case to share with us his latest published book, In Praise of the Unexpected Path, which links to Hope in the darkness, where he reflected on activism and confirmed its contribution to achieving results, beyond the often self-serving discourses that encourage inaction.

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The Croatian writer Dubravka Ugresico (1949-2023) suffered the end of Yugoslavia and went into exile to end her days in the Netherlands, after a nomadic life teaching at universities all over the world. One day, when she was already a mature woman, an admirer of her books left her a house with a garden not far from Zagreb, her city. At first, she thought about giving it up, but the inheritance tax was very low, so she accepted. She went, explored the area, put up curtains, and even shared it with Bojan, who had left his career as a judge to deactivate the many mines that still remained in the area, vestiges of the terrible Balkan War.

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What does Natalia Ginzburg mean when she says that The History What is the most beautiful novel of the 20th century? Not only because it's a literary ambitious work, but because it goes to the core. The almost eight hundred pages of The History, by Elsa Morante (Rome, 1912-1985), they strike us where it hurts most, which is in the heart. The story—now in lowercase—of Ida Ramundo and her son Useppe, who is barely two inches off the ground, touches us deeply. This powerful choral novel is a hymn to human resilience and the everyday heroism of the weakest, capable of displaying a Numantian fortitude.

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Philologist and former member of the Congress of Deputies for En Comú Podem, Mar García Puig (Barcelona, ​​​​1977) surprised a lot with his first book, The history of vertebrates –which received the Ciutat de Barcelona Award in the essay, humanities, and history categories–, where she openly poured out her experience on the little-explored alliance between motherhood and mental health. I was captivated by its stark sincerity and because it was filtered through the lens of her literary training, and the result was a very balanced combination of sanity and rapture, between stark experience and thoughtful awareness.

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If there is one complaint shared by all citizens, whether left or right, it is how cumbersome bureaucracy can be – also referred to as bureaucracy– and to what extent it envelops us like the sticky filaments of a spider's web. In his latest novel, Opposition, Sara Mesa (Madrid, 1976) rests on this suffocating reality, which affects us all, without exception.

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Let me start by saying that the Cal Carré publishing house is grateful for its willingness to revive the English writer Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), a fighter for women's rights, a literary genius of the highest level and mother of Mary Shelley, whom she endowed with similar talent. Two years ago, it published her novel Maria or the world against women, where she denounced the oppression that women experienced, embodied in one who dared to flee from her husband and was locked up with a lock and key. Now she has translated Mary. A fiction, where another woman runs away, but there is no one to stop her because she is strong in rebellion.

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Of every author we like, we always love one book above all the others. My favorite book ofImma Monzon is A man of his word, where she recounts the death of her life partner with an excellence that many other books would like to have. And what does Monsó have to do with Teresa Ibars (Aitona, 1962), apart from being contemporaries and both from Lleida? Well, Ibars has just published a book that talks about the death of her partner, Xavier, as well as other goodbyes that have driven her crazy over the years.

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Gabriel Ferrater He said that the highest form of literature was poetry, but that literature does not rest on its peaks. I have always believed that the basis of all literature is the essay and the ability to think about ourselves, which is what literature is based on. One of the essays that has recently been most successful when it comes to making a portrait of what we are today is Without story, by the writer and psychoanalyst Lola López Mondéjar (1958). Forget about the techniques of mindfulness and immerse yourself in the exciting exercise of looking at yourself in the mirror of reality.

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