The writer Najat El Hachmi (Beni Sidel, 1979) responds gracefully to the proposal of this interview: "You invite me to weddings." The winner of, among others, the Ramon Llull, City of Barcelona, ​​and Christmas prizes, who has just published a new edition of The Body Hunter (Ediciones 62, 2026), not only relates to the world through the embellishing filter of literature: it also does so through taste.

"I just finished reading a novel that I think is a little gem: The staple (The agrafe), by Maryline Desbiolles," says Najat El Hachmi, amazed by the prose of the French writer born in Ugine in 1959 and author of novels such as Anchise, Femina Prize winner in 1999. "It is subtle and written with a very natural lyricism," adds El Hachmi about The staple, a book published in 2024 in France, where it won the Le Monde prize. Desboilles tells the story of Emma Fulconis, a teenager from Nice who is bitten by a dog and insulted by the owner, who tells her that his dog doesn't like Arabs.

The writer Najat El Hachmi was born in Morocco (Beni Sidel, 1979) and arrived in Vic when she was just eight years old. You can imagine her adolescence when you read the novel. The secrets of the Nur, in which a twelve-year-old girl who wants to be a writer discovers the racist and classist world and her Muslim and sexist family. Najat El Hachmi has become a renowned writer, with awards such as the Ramon Llull, the Nadal, and the Ciutat de Barcelona, and she fights for equality and freedoms to triumph, both in the country that welcomed her and in her home community.

When she was thirteen or fourteen, Najat El Hachmi worked evenings at a local fruit and vegetable shop. "There I realized how hard it is to earn money," she recalls. She used the money she earned to buy a coat. Since then, she hadn't worked as a saleswoman until this Thursday, when her publisher asked her to work as a bookseller at the Casa del Libro on Rambla de Catalunya, alongside authors like Xavier Bosch, Martí Gironell, Toni Cruanyes, Estrella Solé, and Borja de Riquer, ready to recommend their favorite books. What actually happened was that customers who caught the writers standing at the counter took the opportunity to buy their new releases with a dedication. It was an early Sant Jordi, with more peace of mind but no discount.