After publishing a few years ago A philosophy of fear, finalist for the Anagrama Essay Prize in 2021Bernat Castany Prado, philosopher and philologist, professor of literature at the UB, returns to bookstores with another delightful and highly recommended essay. A philosophy of laughterOnce again, we find an author who writes with a good rhythm, in an exuberant style, full of imagery, metaphors, and stylistic turns, yet maintains due restraint regarding the rigor of his ideas. The wit that characterizes the writing in this book is not exhausted by mere fireworks, but rather serves a way of life. Reading Professor Castany makes us better.

"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.

Since, At the end of 2020, Mercè Ibarz (Saidí, 1954) published Triptych of the Earth in Anagrama —which brings together two of his best-known books, The withdrawn land (Quema Notebooks, 1994) and The wheat palm (Quema Notebooks, 1995), and the unpublished unfinished work–His work has progressed in two phases: from the revision and expansion of some of his emblematic titles, such as Urban Tales (Anagrama, 2022) and Portrait of Mercè Rodoreda (Empúries, 2022), and new developments such as the trials Rodoreda, a map (Barcino, 2022) and Don't think, just look: in front of the work of art (Anagrama, 2024) and the anthology Modern Pioneers (Arola, 2020), which brings together plays by a dozen Catalan authors, including Carme Karr, Rosa Maria Arquimbau, and Víctor Català. Now she publishes A girl in the city (Anagrama), where he recalls how he arrived in Barcelona in the early 1970s and everything he has found since then: love, friendship, work and his literary vocation.

Gathering bits of clay scattered across barren land, the narrator of this highly recommended booklet states: "They remind me that the essence of narrative is emptiness. They don't explain how the vineyards were lost, but they reveal the existence of a village that is no more." The author has no ambition to reconstruct, from the collected fragments, the whole dish, the whole jug. In fact, equipped with a notebook in which he jots down ideas, intuitions, and quotes from others, he follows traces that are more or less erased. He travels to Lleida, returns to Barcelona, ​​goes as far as the Anoia basin, and finally arrives in his native Bages. In the notebook, he records everything that has overwhelmed civilization, the destructive work of a predatory neoliberalism. His journey is about place, of course, but also about time. Perhaps even more so about time. In the last hundred years, for example, the place—the country—has changed substantially: Catalonia's landscape has become predominantly urban. Concrete has overwhelmingly won out over the land. Before, when we went to a farmhouse to have a calçotada with friends, we said we were going to farmerThis expression has not only lost its punch, but the spirit it intends to convey is threatened.

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.

The birthday, by Andrea Bajani (Rome, 1975), is a story somewhere between a novel and autofiction that deals with the liberation of a man who dismantles the totalitarianism of the most important institution: the family. And it is even more commendable that the author is Italian and has the courage to break the taboo of the family, a concept that is nothing more than a hypocritical social convention like all formalities.

There are many children from more or less well-off families who embrace the ideals and rhetoric of the social-communist revolution but who then dedicate themselves to living, with perfect peace of mind, a life of privilege that clashes with their supposed ideological program. This is a reproach that cannot be made to Giangiacomo Feltrinelli (Milan, 1926-Segrate, 1972), who He was always aware of his privileges and always showed a consistent commitment to the cause of the radical left.This is clear from reading the loving and understanding (but not hagiographic) biography written by his son Carlo: Senior Service. Biography of an editor.

Jaume Subirana (Barcelona, ​​​​1963) reflects on a thorny issue in the hundred pages of the essay Literature, language and place (Anagrama, in Catalan and Spanish). The writer, professor of Catalan literature at the UPF and former director of the Institute of Catalan Letters, analyzes what "empites" Catalan literature and what expands it, observes the coexistence of colonialism and essentialism, and proposes new horizons. Catalan?

"Assassins of reasons, of lives, / may he never have rest in any of his days / and may our memories haunt him in death." These verses are part of Death bells, of Lluís Llach, a song commemorating the murder of five people in March 1976 in Vitoria following a workers' strike. In a country in transition from dictatorship to democracy, those responsible were never held accountable for their crimes, and only at the turn of the century was an official tribute paid to the victims. Later, faced with the impossibility of resorting to Spanish justice, an attempt was also unsuccessfully made to seek international redress through the so-called Argentine complaint.

You can try it lying in bed, in front of a mirror, or even from inside a bathtub full of water. To achieve this, he explains Gabriel Ventura in the essay The best of impossible worlds (Anagram, 2025), "it requires a bit of concentration and following a few steps." The most popular method is the one known as the crow. To try it you have to be "very tired or in a state of deep relaxation." Believe, slightly bent - emulating the wings of a crow - and legs apart, you close your eyes, and while counting to one hundred, as many times as necessary, you repeat to yourself: "I can move to any universe I want." If you start to hear a tingling in your hands and feet it is a good sign: the head is showing its head.

Game theory studies, in a decision, what is the optimal choice for an individual when the costs and benefits of each option are not predetermined, but depend on the choices of other individuals. Arià Paco's novel, the latest Anagrama Books Award winner, could be defined as the playful embodiment of this theory: a philosophical and literary experiment that is both the portrait of a generation and a treatise on the relationships between the individuals within it. An experiment that has turned out remarkably well, especially considering the difficulty of the challenge posed by the writer from Igualada, who had already written a good novel about his city: Coward, old woman, so wild. If there he skillfully and vigorously outlined the end of youth and the form of bonded friendship, here he aims to write the First Great Novel on a concept as slippery and one that has oozed as much ink as New Masculinities.

1) I don't recall there being so much talk about a book that hasn't yet been published and distributed, and therefore hasn't yet been read by its potential readers. At least in Spain. The book in question is titled Hate and its author is the writer Luisgé Martín (Madrid, 1962), an author with several published novels to his credit. This title came to our attention when the media announced last week that a judge had suspended its publication for alleged interference in the right to honor, privacy, and self-image of the mother of the children murdered by their father more than a decade ago. The legal services of the publishing company itself, in turn, would be the ones to decide whether or not to respect the judges' decision. In a word, its distribution was illegal. A few days later, a court in Barcelona was considering whether to halt the publication of HateAt the time of writing this article, it is still unknown whether Hate whether it will be distributed or not, and therefore whether it can be read. The latest we know is that the publisher has suspended publication "indefinitely."

Anagrama publishing house will indefinitely suspend the publication of the book. Hate, in which the author Luisgé Martín collects the letters he exchanged with José Bretón, in which he confesses to the murder of his two children, for which he is serving a prison sentence. The day after the book was scheduled to go on sale, the publisher defended its decision as "an exercise of prudence" despite the fact that the judge had ruled out arresting him. In fact, the court rejected the request of the Juvenile Prosecutor's Office, which advocated that the book not be published to avoid the "serious and imminent risk of unlawful interference with the children's right to honor" and privacy.

The Barcelona Juvenile Prosecutor's Office has appealed the decision of the court of first instance, which on Monday denied a precautionary halt to the distribution of the book. Hate, by Luisgé Martín, in which José Bretón confesses to the murder of his two children in 2011 and reveals intimate details about the children's mother, Ruth Ortiz. Following the murders, Ortiz led the judicial fight to classify vicarious violence (that which hits children for harming their mothers) as a type of gender-based violence.

The publishing house Anagrama has suspended the publication of the book Hate, where Luisgé Martín compiles the letters he exchanged with José Bretón, who confesses to the murder of his two children, for which he is serving a sentence. These facts he had not acknowledged until now. Sources from the publishing house explain to ARA that it has suspended distribution, scheduled for March 26, pending its lawyers' analysis. According to judicial sources cited by Efe and Europa Press, Anagrama made the decision after receiving a fax from the children's mother, Ruth Ortiz, who has requested protection from the Córdoba Prosecutor's Office to halt distribution of the book, as reported by Cadena SER. and The Country. However, the publisher has also received a warning from the Barcelona Juvenile Prosecutor's Office.

Since won the Booker Prize thanks to Orbital, Samantha Harvey's (Kent, 1975) diary has been filling up, and for now it is almost a feat to get to speak to her. Even so, the English author lives far from the media pressure, and not even the literary award, one of the most prestigious today, has managed to get her to buy a mobile phone. She speaks to us from the 16th century house where she lives, on the outskirts of Bath. It was there that she wrote her latest novel, in which she recounts a single day in the life of six astronauts on the International Space Station. While they orbit the Earth, the characters in the novel areOrbital (Edicions 62 / Anagrama; Catalan translation by Ernest Riera) concentrate on their jobs – such as cultivating protein crystals, monitoring microbes or investigating muscle decline –, they remember why they wanted to travel to outer space and, above all, they gaze in wonder at the unique and fragile planet.

There has been a lot of literature – or meta-literature – about the process of writing a book. These writers suffer for every sentence, drunk or drugged, secreting an infinite pain in having to produce a text with the doses of originality or at least formal gravity and drama that justify their herculean effort. Dick or the sadness of sex, instead, I imagine its author, Kiko Amat, having a great time with his writing. Because although what is addressed is an outrageously traumatic sexual experience, the author's intention and the resources he puts at his service are still completely humorous.

Katharina Volker's first novel explains, in a first-person monologue, Sarah's visit to the doctor who has to operate on her to "set her free" from her vagina.. The protagonist of The Appointment (La Campana / Anagrama, 2021) tells, with an often very black sense of humour, the series of identity problems - national and intimate - that have led her to make the decision to change her sex. Sarah's testimony, dense, shocking and at times lyrical, is in the process of being translated into fifteen languages after the book was well received in the United Kingdom, where the author, born in Germany in 1987, has been living for fifteen years.