When George Orwell (1903-1950) decides to travel to Catalonia in 1936 to fight as a militiaman in the Civil War and "kill fascists", he does not go alone. He had only been married for a few months to Eileen O'Shaughnessy, a brilliant 30-year-old woman who surpassed him in many educational aspects. While Eric Blair, the real name of the young English writer, had no more than secondary education at Eton, she had accumulated the background of having studied literature at Oxford and a postgraduate degree in psychology in London. They will have an unusual "honeymoon": while Orwell is on the Aragon front, Eileen will work in Barcelona receiving British militiamen and will be the first to realize the seriousness of the internal conflict that will lead to the May Events.

At least during its very long first part, The Black Prince, ofIris Murdoch (Dublin, 1919-Oxford, 1999), suggests a reversal of the premise of Waiting for Godot of Samuel BeckettJust as Vladimir and Estrago spend the entire play without moving from where they are because they wait in vain for someone who never arrives, Bradley Pearson, the protagonist of Murdoch's novel, a retired tax inspector, an ambitious writer but full of quirks, complexes, and frustrations, spends more than three hundred pages wanting to escape—a teacher who has wanted to write for years, but can't leave because a chain of incidents involving friends and family prevents her. Godot No one ever arrives; here, on the other hand, everyone arrives. All of this gives the novel the feel and rhythm of a frenetic tragicomic vaudeville or a sophisticated farce, with constant comings and goings, dramatic situations handled with both seriousness and humor (domestic violence, adultery, suicide attempts or announcements, drunken binges). Murdoch is a virtuoso of profound and transcendent philosophical reflection as well as of comical and absurdist sensationalism, and she is even more virtuosic at combining them. She couldn't be more British.

With FarewellsJulian Barnes (Leicester, 1946) does not say goodbye to literature, because he is supposed to continue reading until his death or until his eyes and brain allow it, but he does say goodbye to writing books and to his readers. When I say he's saying goodbye, I mean it literally.And he also makes this explicit in the final paragraphs, directly addressing those who are reading it: "I hope you have enjoyed our relationship over the years. I certainly have. Your presence has pleased me (when you think about it, I would be nothing without you)."

Several novels by Zadie Smith (London, 1975), one of the most important writers in contemporary English literature, had been published in Catalan since her debut, White teethBut the vicissitudes of the publishing world (what gory novel wouldn't Smith herself write!) have condemned it to the unglamorous oblivion of secondhand bookstores, and thus the appearance ofThe fraud, her latest novel, splendidly translated by Marta Pera and published by the very young Jande publishing houseThis is great news. And we hope there will be many more to come, because Smith's novels are too good not to be part of the literary conversation among Catalan-language book readers.