New fiction book from (English/Catalan) author Matthew Tree

"In Saint James' Park, London, the police apprehend a young man who is carrying a bag full of high explosives in one hand and a collection of letters sent to his grandfather by the writer Malcolm Lowry in his inside pocket. 

In the course of the following interrogation, we discover the strange past and secret phobias of the detainee, and the emotional link between his actions and the Lowry letters. (The book's author really did have a grandfather to whom Lowry wrote on a regular basis)."

From the Back Cover:

Originally published in both Catalan and Spanish, 'If Only' now appears in a revised edition in English for the first time.

'This is a technically competent book with the force of a lashing gale. There is no question that it deserves an English language readership'. Times Literary Supplement.

'A work of literature which has received praise from many different sources, as well as the first Columna Award' El Punt newspaper.

'In short, a brilliant and innovative novel...you won't be able to put it down'. The poet Daniel Ruiz-Trillo in  El Punt newspaper.

'This extraordinary novel, which I read in one sitting...interesting, caustic and technically remarkable.' El Periódico de Catalunya.

'One of the most surprising, unusual and ambitious books of recent years' El Temps magazine.

'Tree creates an atmosphere which convinces the reader and plunges him into the world of the story'. El País.

To read more click here.

On beating Corona, a new order and kindness...

[Photo: Lluis Romero]

Author and journalist Matthew Tree's latest penetrating article in Catalonia Today magazine (published under the title "Ringing in the new:) 

"Last month, Maria Branyas, the oldest woman in Catalonia and indeed in the whole of Spain, and possibly in the whole of Europe, hit the virtual headlines when she survived a coronavirus infection at age 113. 

(She had also got through the First World War – during which the ship taking her and her family back to Barcelona from the United States was almost bombed -; the 1918 ’flu pandemic; the Spanish Civil War; and, of course, Franco’s wretched four-decade dictatorship). 

This extraordinary woman, born in San Francisco in 1907 and now resident in the Pyrenean town of Olot, broke the isolation of quarantine by tweeting clear and coherent messages to all and sundry, in one of which she said, re Covid-19: “I believe that nothing will be the same again... You will need a new order, a change in the hierarchy of values and priorities, a new human era.” 

She’s by no means the only person to think that the post-virus world will be completely different from the one we used to be used to. 

For example, Xavier Farràs, a professor at Barcelona’s Ramon Llull University, also sees major changes ahead, such as the ascendance of Chinese-type methods of social control and a huge increase in the number of people working at home. 

The Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek agrees that there will be no return to normality, and foresees the emergence of “a certain form of communism”. 

By contrast, a good friend of mine in London thinks that hardly anything will change, except maybe a certain reluctance for people to pay a lot more for a coffee served in a café when they’ve got used to making their own at home for a sixth of the price (and the same goes for any other drink you care to mention). 

The French writer Michel Houellebecq has stated publicly that absolutely everything will go back to normal. 

For what it’s worth, I was firmly in the ’nothing will change’ camp until I stumbled across an article entitled ’Greed Is Dead’ in the Times Literary Supplement by the economist Paul Collier, in which the author points out that ’Economic Man’ – a term coined in the 1950s to describe the type of person who does well in capitalist societies by putting greed and selfishness to economic advantage – is on the way out and indeed, must be frog-marched to the door if the rest of us want to survive. 

Recent studies of the evolutionary origin of successful human communities have shown that homo sapiens sapiens is a uniquely social species that functions best when it’s able to weave a “vast web of kindness and mutual obligations” (Collier dixit). 

In other words, exactly the type of web in which the successful capitalists of today would be unable to avoid throttling themselves to death. In a nutshell, we are genetically programmed to be prosocial, to exchange information and assistance without a profit motive, and to thus develop the ’collective brain’ we call culture, which is essential to future human progress. 

Needless to say, any aberration from this ethical model based on mutual aid is precisely that: an abnormality, a deviation, a mistake. 

Our business model of the past couple of centuries is thus a freakish wrong turn along which those who take it are given a licence to be bad, with fatal consequences: wealthy capitalists, far from being social successes, are as impossible to integrate into a healthy society as are psychopaths. 

These recent discoveries are the result of an increased overlapping of scientific disciplines (by way of example, one of the scientists Collier quotes is a professor of ecology, biology, sociology, medicine, data statistics and biomedical engineering), which have now made it possible for us to take a much better look at the still fairly blurry Big (Human) Picture. 

It could well be that the impact of Covid-19 will finally enable us to see it so clearly, we’ll be able to detect the devil in the details – and deal with him."

"Why your next read should be from Catalonia"

Apart from someone like the excellent Matthew Tree, "it’s slim pickings for English-language readers looking for literary insight into this fascinating, independent-minded culture, with translations of Catalan masterpieces woefully sparse.

And for every regularly translated Montserrat Roig, Quim Monzó or Jaume Cabré — the latter of whom Catalan scholar Montserrat Lunati considers to be “possibly the best novelist in Catalan right now” — you’ve got a Max Besora, Albert Pijuan or Maria Guasch, who’ve been recognized for producing some of the best books of 2017, but have yet to see their works published in English.

Still, English-language publications are slowly taking note. Based on recommendations from Catalan writer, literary critic and current coordinator of the “Barcelona, City of Literature” project Marina Espasa, and others, here are some texts that you can find in English, whether in print or online.

WE COULD HAVE STUDIED LESS BY MARTA ROJALS

(Translated by Alicia Maria Meier). Rojals’ impressive 2011 debut, Primavera, estiu, etcètera, is an “exceptionally good” novel, Espasa says, that effectively taps into the everyday parlance of the people, all while exploring the plights of a generation. The author strikes a balance between selling well without selling out, Espasa adds, and that’s also evident in her tightly crafted “passionate and on-the-money” essays, such as those compiled in We Could Have Studied Less. Life in contemporary Catalonia has rarely been articulated so well.

Translated excerpts here.

‘FOR NO ONE’ FROM LA MALA REPUTACIÓ BY BEL OLID

(Translated by María Cristina Hall). As a writer’s rights activist, one-time candidate for a seat in Catalan Parliament and a key figure of queer visibility on the Catalan literary scene, Olid is so much more than a writer. “For No One,” taken from her short story collection La mala reputació, is one of her few pieces available in English, says Catalan-to-English translator Bethan Cunningham. And like Olid herself, it’s complex and engrossing. A queer, tragic love story of sorts, it’s a beautifully executed tale that will leave you emotionally broken.

Translated short story here.

YOU’VE LIKELY NEVER BEEN TO A PARTY THIS BIG BY BORJA BAGUNYÀ

(Translated by Scott Shanahan). Bagunyà may have published three books and generated much critical acclaim and discussion, but he remains surprisingly underrated beyond the Catalan literary scene. In fact, his short story “You’ve Likely Never Been to a Party This Big” (translated in 2017), which relates the disorienting, so often unarticulated horrors of attending a sprawling social gathering, is the first time an English translation of his work has been published online.

Translated short story here.

THE LAST PATRIARCH BY NAJAT EL HACHMI

(Translated by Peter Bush). One of the most widely acclaimed (and widely translated) books to come from Catalonia in the past decade is The Last Patriarch, by Moroccan-Catalan- Spanish [?] author el Hachmi. Touching on some of the more overtly drawn autobiographical themes addressed in her 2004 debut, Jo també sóc catalana (I’m Catalan Too), this is a two-parter of violence, identity and, ultimately, empowerment.

MEDDLING KIDS BY EDGAR CANTERO

As opposed to the previous writers, Cantero often skips the whole translation debacle, and writes in English. His second English-language novel, New York Times best-seller Meddling Kids — inspired by kids’ TV favorite Scooby-Doo — blends a unique, meta narrative with more pop culture references than Stranger Things (however, it does a far better job at subverting them)."

For further reading see source at Ozy here.

"The summer of Trump"

[Image: Lluis Romero]

Author and journalist Matthew Tree gives one of the most accurate and damning round-ups of Donald Trump's actions in the highest public office...

"This summer, whether you be hiking in mountainous areas, lolling about in a sea or visiting the foreign capital of your choice, one thing is certain: you’ll be hearing about Donald Trump. 

He has never failed to make daily headlines, right from the start of his campaign (the racist slurs about Mexicans being rapists, neatly counterbalanced by his own recorded comments about seizing vulvas as a recommended method of seduction) through to almost everything he’s done since he’s been president: banning immigration from Muslim countries where he has no business interests, but hob-nobbing and sword dancing in Muslim countries where he does; lying about paying wads of hush money to a porn star with whom he had sex just days after the birth of Donald Jr.; slashing the size of national parks to allow mining; defending outspokenly racist demonstrators; imposing immigration restrictions that allow police to seize small children from Latin American mothers trying to cross the border; imposing metal tariffs that could plunge the world – including the US – into another economic recession; praising an unpredictable Korean dictator who runs the world’s deadliest labour camps, keeps a large part of his own population at or below starvation level and murders members of his own family, in exchange for a handshake photo with said tyrant; and, last but not least, planning to ban abortion completely (the only other country which did this was Romania under the Ceausescus, with tragic results for hundreds of thousands of unwanted orphans) and promoting sexual abstinence in schools as the only acceptable method of contraception (this is not only odd, coming as it does from a serial adulterer, but research done on existing Christian pro-abstinence schools has revealed a marked increase in anal sex among their teenage pupils). And as for Trump’s ties to Russia, let’s not even go there (Robert Mueller, the Special Counsel for the Department of Justice, is doing that for us).

The source of the fascination which Trump exercises on so many of us – we tend to gawp at his latest blunders like people passing a car crash – probably has something to do with the disjunction between what he proclaims to be the truth, and the reality which gives him the lie. 

In Catalonia, we know the feeling well: the previous Spanish government – and, at the time of writing, the current one – persist in accusing a cultural activist and 15 elected politicians (eight in distant jail, seven in even more distant exile) of violent rebellion for organising a referendum in which the violence was all but monopolised by imported Spanish police. 

The reaction of many people here to this is similar to that of many Americans towards Trump: there is some outrage, some frustration, but the topmost feeling is one of sheer incredulity. Having said which, there is an important difference: the judges and politicians responsible for the unlikely charges against Catalan leaders are professionals who got where they are because they wanted to be there. 

According to the journalist Michael Wolff in his book ‘Fire And Fury’, the key to Trump’s incompetence is that he never expected to be president: he ran for the post to raise his profile sky-high in order to launch a TV network. He even guaranteed that he wouldn’t win to his wife (who didn’t want him to). 

It makes you wonder which is worse: an accidental president who does nothing but create accidents? Or a government and judiciary that knowingly and deliberately creates a situation which is patently absurd?"

Source: here at Catalonia Today magazine.

Video: I talk and listen about this week's national and international stories

This week I was a guest again on Matthew Tree's English language discussion program on El Punt Avui TV. 

We covered topics including Trump's latest actions, the current Spanish government's insistance on preserving Europe's largest fascist monument and their threats of legal action against any company making ballot boxes for the Catalan government.

For a video of the show click here.

"The Trump Show" - My latest opinion column in Catalonia Today magazine

There is really only one news story over the last months: the start of Donald Trump's regime.

Before the end of last year I said on Matthew Tree’s TV discussion program that one of the main reasons Trump was elected was that he knows that (now more than ever) politics is an entertainment industry. 

Style has become substance. Impression has replaced reality.

I also said that Trump would have been defeated by Bernie Sanders, the other alternative candidate in the Democratic party who offered a genuine agenda of change rather than Hillary Clinton’s message of a continuing the same for another four years.

Trump found the votes he needed in the parts of the country where he needed them because he stood for a major shake-up to a system that clearly needs it and because he repeatedly promised work again to the unemployed. 

When I talk to people here in Catalonia, plenty of people use the word “confident” about Donald Trump. What seems to me as his grotesque arrogance then, is seen by others as a can-do attitude and has given a false hope. And it is also this that helped propel him into the White House.

Large numbers of the public are prepared to ignore his clear personality faults because Trump projects the persona of someone who is an action hero, a cowboy, a maverick but a ‘do-er’ as well as a big talker. And a significant chunk of the popular media has continued to be sucked into reporting his ‘colourful antics’ and ‘controversial statements’ rather than the policy decisions he has already taken in his first weeks in charge.

Even as I write this article, I have to struggle to concentrate on the detail of the executive orders he has just signed rather than talking about his inflammatory Twitter posts. It is easier to look at what he has tweeted than what he has, with a stroke of his pen, made into law. 

On a daily basis the airwaves and worldwide web are awash with his decisions but the hour-by-hour short news cycle can never dwell for too long on a single issue and Trump thrives on this fact as much as he enjoys letting it drag him into the gutter.

Recently, several journalists who covered the protests at his inauguration were charged. With exactly what offence no one's quite sure at this moment but this intimidation tactic is likely to have its desired effect. 

As well as this, the Spanish language version of the Presidential website was shut down: a clear signal to the US’ hispanic citizens that they are disposable too in the wider sweep of life. 

These are actions, not words and they are Donald Trump’s actions. Despite this, his distractions about voter fraud and the size of the crowd at his first speech as commander-in-chief have been publicised a great deal more than his decision-making, as if his social media presence was more significant than the impact of his policies on ordinary people.

It is more than apparent now that those who thought Trump would soften his attitudes and become sobre and responsible once sitting at the Oval Office desk were wrong. 

He is just getting warmed up. 

What we will witness in the next four years (or possibly even eight years) is guaranteed to be an extreme exercise of naked power as a simple extension of his ego. It will be unlike any other term of office in that corrupt superpower ‘democracy.’ 

The crucial question is how much congress is going to stand up to Trump’s will. My prediction is that the majority Republican party will typically bend to his wishes.

I was woken up at five o’clock in the morning by a dream about Trump and immediately decided to write this article. In my dream Trump was on a television talk show and left the set complaining and throwing his earpiece on the ground. 

The truth is that he no longer needs to even appear on TV. We are all doing his PR for him and I would argue that his tweets should be completely ignored by all media, in effort to starve him of easy air time.

But after all though, Donald Trump is the logical result of a society obsessed with money where worship of wealth is as deeply engrained as feeling for the stars and stripes flag.

 
[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, March 2017.]

Four middle-aged men talk democracy and rights in Catalonia, Spain and Syria

Click here: http://www.elpuntavui.tv/video/203328544.html

This week I was a guest once again on author/journalist Matthew Tree's roundtable TV program, Our Finest Hour.

The other panel members were lawyer and journalist Frank MacGabhann and long time resident of Catalonia, Andrew Spence.

Video: "TV talk: Trump, Catalan language and Leonard Cohen"

http://www.elpuntavui.tv/video/192005057.html

This week I was once again a guest on Matthew Tree's panel show "Our Finest Hour." We discussed Donald Trump, where Catalan is and is not able to be spoken in Catalonia and Leonard Cohen, before a live performance by Guillem Gené of Cohen's song "Bird on a Wire."

Video: Latest appearance on a panel program

[http://www.elpuntavui.tv/programes/english-hour.html]

Last night I was once again a guest on Matthew Tree's TV round table discussion show, Our Finest Hour. 

Along with the authors Simon Harris and Carmen Amorós we talked about (in reverse order) Russia and the bombing of Aleppo, Donald Trump (of course,) far-right and anti-Fascist groups demonstrating on the Spanish National Day, the Catalan towns that defied central government orders to close council offices on this same holiday and [a pet subject of mine]...Albania!

My latest appearance on The English Hour (El Punt Avui TV)

http://www.elpuntavui.tv/video.html?view=video&video_id=161065477tion

Last Thursday I was a guest again on Matthew Tree's round table chat show, Our Finest Hour. 

We talked about the Spanish government's disgraceful rejection of Catalan proposals to welcome 4,500 refugees, the most recent ranglings over who might make up the next administration in Madrid and the role of multi-lingualism in Catalunya.

Latest appearance on Catalan TV

[http://www.elpuntavui.tv/video.html?view=video&video_id=144114067]


Discussing the Catalan situation and some wider issues on Matthew Tree's "Our Finest Hour" talk show from El Punt Avui's English Hour last Thursday.