"He folded the diary, which first unfolded on his knees and then slid slowly down before landing on the waxed parquet floor. You would have thought he had just fallen asleep if it weren't for the thin slit that occasionally appeared between his eyelids." This is the lazy and narcotic—yet also direct and addictive—opening of The cat (1966), one of the great novels by Georges Simenon (1903-1989), has been chosen from the outset by Quaderns Crema and Acantilado to begin their re-release, starting October 13th, of the literary legacy of one of the essential writers of the 20th century. Editor Jaume Vallcorba intends to publish it "with the respect due to great writers," combining the so-called harsh Romans With 72 novels featuring the celebrated Inspector Maigret, always with his pipe in hand and paying attention to the smallest and most revealing details. The Maigret series will begin with Pietr, the Latvian and will continue in November with The Yellow Dog One month later The cat will arrive The canal house

Although she was born in a small town in southwestern Germany after the Berlin Wall had already fallen, Charlotte Gneuss (Ludwigsburg, 1992) grew up listening to the stories her parents told her about their youth in Dresden during the GDR years. "Since they had been able to escape so early, they had no problem talking about it," she recalls. She made the reverse move: when she turned 18, she moved to Dresden to study social work, and from there she went to Leipzig, where she trained in creative writing. "Thanks to my grandmother, I became an avid reader from a young age. Perhaps it was inevitable that one day I would try to write," she says. The root of GitterseeHer first novel—now published in Catalan by Periscopio, translated by Carlota Gurt, and in Spanish by Acantilado, translated by Alberto Gordo—consists of three sentences that came to the author in quick succession, prompting her to expand the story over seven years. "Thorsten and David."

[We are republishing this interview conducted in Marrakech on September 27, 2024, on the occasion of the 2024 Formentor Prize]

It's been almost fifteen years since Teju Cole (Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1975) published Open city –in Catalan in Quaderns Crema, translated by Xavier Pàmies–, an introspective and subtle novel about a boy who walks through contemporary New York and describes it with exquisite prose that is at the same time critical of the traces of racism and colonialism that can still be found in Cole1. Harvard, has visited Barcelona to present a new book, Black paper (Acantilado, 2025; Spanish translation by Miguel Temprano García). This collection of essays offers an intelligent and erudite tour of some of his many cultural interests: he devotes inspired pages to illuminating the painting of Caravaggio or to vindicating the shadows present in the paintings of Kerry James Marshall; he recalls his youthful interest in animals by asking whether black panthers exist or are an invention; he pays homage to one of his grandmothers; he remembers Edward Said, author ofOrientalism and defender of the Palestinian cause; he also explains how, since arriving in the United States from Nigeria at almost 18 years old, he began to define himself as "African".

A Catalan music lover once had dinner with Alfred Brendel, transferred to London last Wednesday, and asked him if he believed that playing the piano was only a question of technique, or if it was essential to also have an idea, or an intellectual conception, of what was being played, whether it was Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven or Schubert.