Up to now, and for almost thirty years, we have known Josep Pedrals (Barcelona, 1979) as a poet, a performer, a lecturer, and a cultural manager. With Poeticismes (Arcàdia, 2026), he debuts as an essayist with the same combination of pleasantness, erudition, and humor that abounds in his verses. In the catch-all drawer that is Pedrals' new book, we find reflections on emperors buried in honey or on the monument to Jacint Verdaguer on Passeig de Sant Joan, chronicles of some of the thousands of recitals in which he has participated around the world —like the one that took him to Macedonia accompanied by Adam Zagajewski—, vindications of authors less known to readers than they should be, and a wealth of curious technical speculations on poetry writing, one of his great passions, along with omnivorous reading and a love for the stage.

The Fundació Prudenci Bertrana has made public the four literary awards it presents annually: the Prudenci Bertrana novel award has gone to Fer cantar els arbres, by Jordi Campoy; the Miquel de Palol poetry award to Horografia, by Joan Tomàs Martínez Grimalt; the Carles Rahola essay award to Terra de Quixots, by Joan Manuel Soldevilla, and the Ramon Muntaner youth novel award, finally, has been won by La fuga, by Laia Aguilar.

"Like a happy castaway, / in October twenty-six, / the thirtieth day, Ramon arrives in the world, / in Barcelona. / Without making much fuss. He is the ninth child". This is how the ballad dedicated by Joan Vilamala to Ramon Folch i Camarasa (1926-2019) begins, one of the key authors of the literary revival in Catalan that started in the late 1950s, alongside Manuel de Pedrolo, Maria Aurèlia Capmany, and Josep Maria Espinàs.

For decades, Biel Mesquida (Castelló de la Plana, 1947) has been inviting readers to delve into all the nuances of the "censored perfume" of freedom, whether sexual or political. On the evening he received the 58th Premi d'Honor de les Lletres Catalanes, the verses of Lluita de classes, one of the agile and radiant poems from El bell país on els homes desitgen els homes –written in 1974 but unpublished until 1985–, once again resonated at the Palau de la Música with the elegant diction of the poet Adrià Targa. "You are a creature, fierce creature, playing with my hips, / biting them, while I knelt, pushed and compelled by your frenzy and / this desire to sink into the beautiful hole of my anus": thus, the urgent connection between the lyrical self and the "disheveled boy" of the commissions still sounds forcefully, an oasis of free love amidst the national-Catholic and Francoist darkness.

It seems to us that we are reading an entertaining novel, with a young character, in his twenties, and without a penny in his pocket, who goes with a lily in his hand and doesn't stop walking (especially due to lack of money): what has always been called a coming-of-age novel or apprenticeship novel. In reality, however, it is an ambitious chronicle, with some episodes with a lot of spice, starring this passionate pilgrim (godless) who decided to risk everything on the gamble of becoming a poet-writer. An admirer of Fyodor M. Dostoevsky and Friedrich Nietzsche, from whom he draws much inspiration, and of William Shakespeare and François Villon. Born in La Selva del Camp in 1882, a bastard son, repudiated by his father (which will mark him deeply), self-taught, often scorned for his lack of academic culture. Of a timid disposition (“The old timidity of the Ferreters put into the blood”). For this reason, despite loving books madly, the protagonist – the author himself, Puig i Ferreter, with no additions – advocates, convinced, for lived culture before learned culture: “This is how I have always used reality to turn it into art. Not by hunting for documents with a notebook in hand, but by taking advantage of the ‘things’ I have lived or that have impressed me deeply and have remained within me with all their colors, in that depth of human experience which, transposed by imagination and fantasy, is the vital treasure of the artist”.

Colm Tóibín (Enniscorthy, 1955), to be able to say his piece about Mercè Rodoreda –an author he has been reading for decades–, has found a gap in his extremely tight schedule and has crossed the Atlantic Ocean from Los Angeles. The author of novels such as Brooklyn and The Magician –both in Catalan from the Amsterdam publishing house– has been the last guest of the exhibitionRodoreda, a forest, which closed its doors a few days ago at the CCCB. 81,880 people have visited it since December, a milestone that has made it the seventh most visited exhibition in the history of the Barcelona venue and the most successful one focused on literature, surpassing those programmed for Claudio Magris, Salvador Espriu and W.G. Sebald.

Although she hasn't lost hope of becoming a "skater, pianist, dancer, and screenwriter for Larry David," Marta Pasqual (Girona, 1983) combines teaching in secondary school, where she teaches French literature, with writing novels as interesting as L'àngel que em mira (Empúries, 2026), the third she has published since debuting in fiction with El malaventurat senyor Clauss (Empúries, 2022). After winning the Just M. Casero prize with La casa dels caps de setmana (Empúries, 2023), Pasqual presents a story centered on a 60-year-old family man, Isaac, who suffers a domestic accident that leaves him in a coma. This starting point allows the author to combine the account of this decisive moment in the protagonist's life with the flood of memories, both good and painful, that visit him during his convalescence.

The reading of Els erms is electric: you have to applaud the skill of Chance brings them together in a remote and somewhat unpleasant place, the inn next to the Sau dam. The chosen location is ideal and well described: the stale and decadent decoration, the fog that envelops everything and turns the hotel into an airtight chamber, the almost empty reservoir: everything contributes to creating the oppressive atmosphere of imminent tragedy that serves as a perfect backdrop for the story of Ramona Ra, a podcasting sociologist and columnist with a bit of imposter syndrome, who has doubts about the relationship she has with an English girlfriend. In addition, she has to write a lecture and, what is worse, she has signed a contract to write an essay that she has no desire to undertake. It is Christmas Eve and there is a sister with a family who is calling for her, but Ramona prefers to hit the road and isolate herself from a world she judges harshly.

This book —which takes its title from a poem by Joan Vinyoli, a friend of Feliu Formosa— discreetly, yet profoundly, celebrates life. Although it reflects on death and absence, on loss and pain, life weighs more heavily. The poet manages the emotion with which he presents each of the pretexts used to elucidate the theme very well. “Love, desire and dream”, begins poem XXIV, which deals with a love affair. At ninety years old, existence becomes more peremptory than ever, but, as many verses demonstrate, also fully in love. “I never know if I say everything”: one never finishes saying everything, but here Formosa says many things (and, when he doesn't, he suggests them). Memories, desires, impressions. And he inventories many ideas. A very suggestive one is that “to live is to translate / and to translate is to live”.

Although she has to use crutches due to a recent fall, Marta Pessarrodona (Terrassa, 1941) retains the energy and enthusiasm that have accompanied her for decades. She opens the door to her home in Valldoreix once again to ARA for a double reason: she has been chosen as the opening speaker for the new edition of the Barcelona Poesia festival, which takes place from May 14 to 21, and she is presenting a new poetry book, Re(visions), which is about to hit bookstores. Published by Viena five years after Tot m'admira (2021), it revisits the author's family members, friends, and loves, including her last dog, Queta, who died in an accident just over a year ago.

It has been twenty years since Jordi Llavina (Gelida, 1968) debuted as a poet with La corda del gronxador (Moll, 2006). The author celebrates the anniversary by selecting his work in verse in El test de la flor malva, published by Pagès: the volume, 200 pages long and with a prologue by Pere Ballart, collects a representative sample of the ten poetry books he has published so far, including Vetlla (3i4, 2012), El magraner (Cossetània, 2020) and Un llum que crema (Proa, 2023).

Just after finishing the reading of Venus i els bàrbars, we could imagine a book club with the members of Revolta Pagesa and councilor Ordeig as moderator, passionately debating this matter of the "barbarians". It is not difficult to believe that such a scene would have delighted the author, always diligent in shaking consciences and provoking lively disputes. Cap de Brot Publishing House has had the courage and the foresight to recover another author from the waters of oblivion. It is, no more and no less, Lluís Capdevila i Vilallonga (Barcelona, 1893-Andorra la Vella, 1980), a picturesque, unclassifiable literary figure. And it does so with an impeccable edition, rounded off by a prologue by Agnès Rotger that aptly accompanies the return of this sidelined voice.

I read that the group Fetus, formed by Adrià Cortadellas, Telm Terradas and Adrià Jiménez, with Carles Belda and Joan Colomo (as producer), are releasing a – to put it in the manner of DJs – “new work”. At l’ARA, where we read that they dedicate their minstrelsy art to issues like the PSC, Aliança Catalana and Rodalies, they say this: "On this album they have called us chroniclers and we agree. In the end, it is all an exercise in understanding the ballad as a predecessor of the press and wanting to claim and reinterpret it as a genre that often has a certain objectivity, but the mere fact of singing it is already a political act in itself".

Carles Fenollosa (València, 1989) has been one of the literary surprises of the season. After debuting with Narcís o l'onanisme (Premi Lletraferit 2018) and writing several essays, the latest of which was La modernitat frustrada (Premi València, 2025), he published his second novel a few months ago, Guerra, victòria, demà (Drassana, 2025), one of the best of 2025 according to and a finalist for the Premi Òmnium.The book's action takes place during the Valencia of the Republic, the Civil War, and exile, following the life of Jesús Martorell, a committed doctor, to Paris, Naples, Dachau, and Buenos Aires.Your first novel, Narcís o l’onanisme

The concern for what can (still) be said is at the heart of this beautiful book, winner of the latest edition of the Carles Riba prize –the first held on a new date–. Let's look at the poem that opens the proceedings, Picking Cherries. The pretext, like most of the pretexts in the poetry of Jaume Coll Mariné (how welcome that is!), comes from country life, from a family coexistence with nature: in this case, a ladder propped against the trunk of a cherry tree, which has remained there after the harvest, done months before. That ladder, which at an inopportune time no longer serves any purpose, “I wish it would mean something.” Perhaps like poetry. Further on, we find a poem of a more ideological nature –which, in the final notes, the author acknowledges as “an attempt to read some of the ways of doing of [Pere] Gimferrer.” It repeats the verse five times: “We no longer know what to call it.” And it is done to insist on all that is falling apart for us: “Nothing is more rotten today / than walking with the name of Spain”; and, a few verses later: “All of Catalonia is a shell / a cracked husk / Nothing is more rotten today.”

One of the most controversial aspects of both the articles and the television and radio appearances of Empar Moliner (Santa Eulàlia de Ronçana, 1966) are her criticisms of certain discourses and positions of feminism, discourses that, according to the writer, reinforce clichés (that of the strong male and that of the helpless and weak female), erase nuances and ignore differences and similarities between men and women. It is known, however, that preconceived ideas, personal convictions, or the clarity with which journalistic collaborations are made are never exactly the same as those with which literature is written. Bearing this in mind, it should not surprise us that Moliner's new novel, Instructions for Living Without Her, takes an element or motif that feminism always places at the center of its discourses – that of the woman burdened with duties and responsibilities who deforms, violates, and enslaves herself to the extreme in order to care for hers – and makes it its dramatic core.The plot premise of the novel is a bit convoluted, but it offers a lot of possibilities both from a narrative and formal point of view, as well as regarding the explanation of social codes and the psychological exploration of characters. The protagonist, Clàudia Pruna, is an author in her late fifties who has enjoyed considerable professional success for years: she writes novels that sell well, collaborates with TV and radio, publishes a daily newspaper article, has loyal readers... The common points with Moliner herself are quite evident, but they end there and, in reality, the question of whether the character is or is not a transcript of the author is of no importance.What is important is that the protagonist has just received a terminal medical diagnosis, knows that she will die in a few months, and suffers from the double economic and logistical hardship her family will face when she, the caregiver who changes her grandson's and grandmother's diapers and the provider who pays the bills and the mortgage, can no longer care for or provide. In what would be a particularly grim and harsh version of the mental load that many women have to manage in their daily routine, Clàudia Pruna makes an extravagant and radical decision: to continue acting as a caregiver and provider posthumously. This is why she spends her final months of life writing articles to be published after her death, this is why she instructs an admiring reader to learn to write like her (so she can continue producing and sending articles when she is no longer there), and this is why she devises a very complicated plan for her to be buried without the news of her death becoming public.A dysfunctional family

From these materials, Moliner constructs a convoluted but plausible artifact, dense yet agile, self-aware yet alive, in which the narrator's voice of the admiring reader, who is the one telling the story, overlaps with Pruna's voice, in which reflections on language go hand in hand with observations about society, in which the fragile and tormented male personality of the admiring reader contrasts with the decisive and hedonistic personality of the writer Pruna, and in which concerns for the family's well-being coexist with the description of an absolutely dysfunctional family life and, even, in an unstoppable process of degradation: the apathetic and neglectful husband, the very young and irresponsible daughter, the already very decrepit grandparents... The general picture is grotesque, and Moliner does not hesitate to emphasize it with details full of malice (the admiring reader's almost vaginal micropenis, the husband's tractor accident while picking his nose), but at the same time compensates for it with the protagonist's vitality and with gestures of unsentimental but profound tenderness. Moliner's elastic and concise prose, refined yet substantial, helps to shape and express a novel that is deeper and more ambitious than the title and editorial design might suggest.

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Every debut novelist is expected to have a voice. They're also expected to have a technique, a style, a skill, or the ability to create memorable characters, but what will make them stand out from the crowd is whether they've managed to offer a different, original introduction. If we were right now inside Etna Miró's novel (Barcelona, ​​2001), "different" and "original" would be in italics to emphasize irony and detachment, two of the mechanisms the author uses most effectively to describe a group of Barcelona residents—those she has had the brilliant idea of ​​creating—who are students of philology, literature, or political science. Like a swarm buzzing with great social intelligence around the hive formed by the islands of Ildefons Cerdà, they come and go, chatting about everything except money, as if they were always in front of an audience. What isn't foreseen is that they will have "spiritual crises," and that's what happens to the novel's protagonist, Amelia de las Camelias, a charmingly ornate, old-fashioned name, an obvious literary reference. The one who has pushed her into it is Amelia herself, who has put on a beautiful shell, but doesn't realize it's empty: she's an Emma Bovary who, no matter how much she reads, doesn't grasp a single one of life's ironies.

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"Writing a chronicle should be an act of freedom," Empar Moliner said towards the end of the presentation of his new novel, Instructions for living without her (Column, 2026), to the readers who listened to her with devotion this Monday evening at the Finestres bookstore. Among the audience were a man who bore a striking resemblance to Michel Houellebecq—one of Moliner's favorite authors—a former director of TV3, a handful of journalism students, and someone who exuded an intense stench of tobacco, camouflaged by the perhaps even more pervasive fragrance of chewing gum.

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"Literary genres don't exist. For me, either there is literature or there isn't. We know what painting, architecture, sculpture, and music are—things change after John Cage—but it's not the same with literature. What is literature, and where do we find it? I can recognize it immediately: literature. I find it very evocative: literature. It excites me." Antoni Marí I used these words in 2012 to introduce Book of Absences (Tusquets), a magnificent example of the cultivated, demanding, and dazzling literary endeavor of the author born in Ibiza in 1944, who died in Barcelona at the age of 81. Shortly afterward, he added: "Literature is about fixing and dispelling the darkness."

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This is the story of a sleepy girl and a bouncy fish. Many years ago, in a place called Catalonia, some grumpy gentlemen with mustaches and beards the color of shoe polish, or nuclear detergent, believed that Catalan wasn't dead but rather a Sleeping Beauty. They set up franchised stores throughout the country and christened them "La Renaixença" (The Catalan Renaissance). What did they want to sell? Salt spray! No, just kidding. They believed that Catalan would awaken after its narcolepsy of 1714, possessing a literary language, a language of culture. And how would they achieve this? With sex.

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