Anaïs Nin started her famous diary in Barcelona?

 

"In Barcelona I didn't have the impression that the absence of my father was definitive. I thought it could come at any moment. We saw his family, his parents, his grandmother...It was his homeland...".

A blog (in Catalan) on the childhood of the great writer in Barcelona.

"Why Read Homage to Catalonia By George Orwell? A Short Review"

 

Rightly describing George Orwell as "one of the great commentators of his own era." Personally, I'd go further and say of any era in the English language. 

Orwell had an ability to get to the visceral in a way that few have. Shakespeare regularly did. James Baldwin also did.

In the best of company

 

Humbled and honoured to be found next to the brilliant Robert Hughes at independent Come In bookshop in Barcelona. 

(Thanks to Leigh for photo.)

"WHY ARE WE AFRAID OF #REFUGEES? / by ELIF SHAFAK"

"In this episode, [Turkish writer] Elif Shafak is focusing on the word #REFUGEE. Why are we afraid of them?"

Moroccan-Catalan writer Najat El Hachmi talks to Mona Eltahawy about freedom

 

"The daughters of Muslim families in Europe must face different challenges to defend their individual freedoms and their emancipation as women.

On the one hand, the patriarchal traditions that come from their country of origin, intimately linked with religion.

On the other, the onslaughts of racism from the far right, which discriminates against them whilst calling for them to be relegated to second place as foreigners.

Finally, there are two revived phenomena that make the process more difficult: Islamic fundamentalism and a certain relativism. In the face of all this, what they want is a genuine freedom, unconditioned by origin, class or identity."

See more from original source here.

"Mid-summer launch of Rosa Maria Arquimbau's 'Forty Lost Years' -- Catalan novelist never before in English"

 

My latest editorial work now published: "10 Hikes near Malmo + Copenhagen"

I'm very happy to have been the editor for the English language version of this superb guide by Rikard Anderson. 

Available here.

LAUNCH EVENT: Spanish-English edition of Clive James' poetry

A bilingual Spanish-English volume of Australian Clive James' poetry has just been published.

Title: "Fin de Fiesta. Últimos Poemas". (Publisher, Pre-Textos.) Launch: 4 May, 19.00h,

@DocumentaBCN

bookshop, Pau Claris, 144 Barcelona.

Reservations (Max. 20 people:) Email correu@documenta-bcn.com ... OR follow event on Instagram:

@documentabcn

"Both Wise and Valiant" -- Women writers in Spain's history

María de Zayas, novelist of the Spanish Golden Age

Credit:Wikimedia Commons

 "Centuries ago, Spanish writers challenged gender norms and barriers...

An exhibit at the Cervantes Institute in Madrid focuses on some of the most important — but largely ignored — women writers of Spain's 16th and 17th centuries.


Think "Spanish literature" and you might come up with "Don Quixote," by Miguel de Cervantes. But there's so much more to classic Spanish lit than "Man of La Mancha."

That’s the focus of "Both Wise and Valiant," an exhibition at the Cervantes Institute in Madrid, which looks at some of the most important — but largely ignored — women writers of Spain's 16th and 17th centuries. 

The exhibit opened in March but closed due to COVID-19. Now the exhibit has reopened and will be on display through September.

“What is surprising is that we haven't known many of these female writers until very recently," said Ana Rodríguez-Rodríguez, curator

“What is surprising is that we haven't known many of these female writers until very recently. They are better known now, in the academic world, but not so much for the greater public. I think that’s something we have to keep working on, and that’s the idea of this exhibition,” said curator Ana Rodríguez-Rodríguez, who is also a professor at the University of Iowa..."

Read more (and listen to a podcast of the story at PRI here.

Guest post by Antoni Cardona on the Corona virus: "Imagine"

The lockdown that we have been suffering through these days could easily generate a lot of questions about now, of course, but also about the next period of the future.

I think that maybe the first issue is the psychological effort that every individual has to make to maintain normal mental conditions, or at least to try to overcome a number of challenges.

First of all, I’d like to say that I have a lot of confidence in Science in the abstract sense, but the Scientific World gives me very little belief in it because it is very often controlled by political and economic Power. I hope and expect that the mysteries of Coronavirus and its infection of human beings will be clarified in a few months and some treatments and vaccines will probably be discovered but  more in the long term.

 Researchers, health and social care, some government decisions -as people live in confinement or making the face mask compulsory-, all this will help to stabilize the expansion of Covid-19 illness around the world and achieve very low levels of newly affected people and death. We have to take into account the great number of government mistakes and indecisions in some other countries. How long will be needed to finish with Covid-19? What will be the final death toll? How much impoverishment will people have to suffer?

            On the other hand, I don’t trust countries – neither their governments and politicians - nor in global Economy. It’s very well-known that some countries intend to defeat their rivals or enemies, not so much by directly spreading viruses. Instead of that, these countries, generally rich and powerful ones, can try to suffocate their opponent's economy, steal or pollute their natural resources, prevent access to new knowledge and so on.

            

Moreover, in some supposedly democratic countries, people have their rights limited and the Power is extended, centralised and militarised. All of this is done with the excuse of fighting the Enemy, the Virus.

           

I’d like to imagine the world, humankind, having the ability to learn the lesson that nature has been given to us. After thousands and thousands of dead people, hundreds of thousands of infected people, millions of people having lost their jobs or seeing their incomes decreased, after all that, we can expect at least two possible ways out. One would be very bad and the other would be excellent.

The evil way out would be that Power in different countries acts as it is defined in the Shock Doctrine [by Naomi Klein.] To take advantage of shocked people (sad, disconcerted, scared or perhaps ill people) by way of the big disaster, then the Power cuts off a lot of social benefits, causing a regression of human rights and democratic values in general. For the people being hit like this it’s very difficult to notice the magnitude of the tragedy that is falling down onto them.

The best way out would consist of people reacting against the pandemic and its associated causes, such as the feeling of depression, fear, general impoverishment and the tendency towards a totalitarian society. How could people lose their fear of the authorities and their orders without being paralysed by the terrible Coronavirus threat? That’s the question.

My wish is that people, confined or not at home, look for imaginative solutions to empower themselves and go back to all kinds of  organisations in different fields and countries.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Born in 1949, Antoni Cardona is a retired doctor, specialised in Psychiatry, who worked in different public health institutions.

At a very young age, he started writing poetry but later made the decision to more often concentrate on creating short stories.

Over a number of years, Antoni trained in various writing techniques at the Aula de Lletres de Barcelona then the Escola d'Escriptura de l'Ateneu, also in the Catalan capital.

He has contributed a story to each of the following literary collections: "Setze Petges" (2004), “Edició Especial” (2011), a food-themed title "Contes per menjar-se'ls" (2015) and “Passió pel conte” (2018).

Antoni has received a number of prizes at literary competitions such as the Narrativa del Col·legi de Metges (medical association.) Other awards for his short stories came from the professionals of the Taulí Hospital in Sabadell and the Crime Fiction Festival of l'Espluga de Francolí.

“Desoris endreçats” (“Ordering disorders”) is his first solo publication.

https://www.voliana.cat/llibres/desoris-endrecats/

"ORDERING DISORDER" (2018)

In this book of short stories you will find characters, some of whom are everyday people, and others that are difficult to come across in the streets.

These are characters who are suffering in silence or maybe without being fully aware of their pain and having different ways of coping: irony, indifferently acting in an off-hand manner, making life-changes, feeling desperate and intense hopelessness or even somehow adapting to their disasters. 

There are those as well who attract danger and play with it. The reader will also encounter characters that cause the cruellest suffering and physical hurt with contempt for their victim. 

Watch out too for those who operate using subtle over protection.

"Women Writers in Catalan"

"This is a catalogue with a selection of 50 contemporary and ten classic women writers...

Written in English, with the exception of the literary samples by each author, with the English translation and the original Catalan text, it's book to discover Catalan literature written by women, prose and poetry, classic and contemporary. 

A book to help getting to know and understanding Catalan literature and some of the women who have helped to create and construct it. "

Read more from source here.

"An encounter with a Romani Gypsy singing in a park in Merida, Spain. (Author reading.)"

Author and journalist Brett Hetherington reads an excerpt from his recent book, "Slow Travels in Unsung Spain" at the SUNBOW Art Lounge in Sitges, Catalonia/Spain.

The singer I met was named Juan de Pura. One of his songs can be heard here.

"How to Lose a Country, in 7 Steps -- A Conversation with Ece Temelkuran"

" “I am one of the early birds…” Ece Temelkuran told me, “I saw democracy collapse in Turkey and tried to warn the United States, European Countries and Britain about this.  

I’ve been telling people that what you think is normal, or a passing phase, is part of a bigger phenomenon that affects us all.  Somehow though, European democracies feel they’re exceptional – and too mature to be affected by neofascist currents.”

Ece has seen this all before.  In her incredible 2019 book How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship, she notes, “We have learned over time that coups in Turkey end the same way regardless of who initiated them. 

It’s like the rueful quote from the former England footballer turned TV pundit Gary Lineker, that football is a simple game played for 120 minutes, and at the end the Germans win on penalties. In Turkey, coups are played out over forty-eight-hour curfews, and the leftists are locked up at the end. Then afterwards, of course, another generation of progressives is rooted out, leaving the country’s soul even more barren than it was before.”

Ece Temelkuran is an award-winning Turkish novelist and political commentator, whose journalism has appeared in the Guardian, New York Times, New Statesman, Frankfurter Allgemeine and Der Spiegel. She has been twice recognised as Turkey’s most-read political columnist, and twice rated as one of the ten most influential people in social media (with three million twitter followers). In this exclusive interview, we discuss the dangers of populism, authoritarianism and fascism, and why we need to act now.

Q: What are populism and nationalism?

[Ece Temelkuran]:  Today, there is less time to understand the differences between nationalism, populism and authoritarianism.  In Britain, democracy is literally crumbling at the hands of a strange guy with funny hair!  People simply aren’t recognising the dangers that lay ahead, so there’s not enough time to get into definitions

One truth is that you cannot really know what populism is until you experience it.  Populism is the act of politicising and mobilising ignorance to the point of political and moral insanity.  Nationalism as we know, comes from the phenomena of nation-states – and it’s quite ironic therefore that we are now talking more and more about the failure of nation states and the failure of supranational and international institutions as well… and meanwhile neo-nationalism is on the rise." "

Read more from source here.

Meet the Authors -- Sitges, Sunday 8 Dec.

I will be just one of the local authors doing an event tomorrow (Sunday) in the coastal town of Sitges at SUNBOW Art Lounge, Carrer de Sant Pau, 34, starting at 7.30PM. 

*Come & spend a relaxed evening with the local authors of Sitges & surroundings

*Hear them showcase their books, inspire you with their stories & entertain you as you enjoy a drink or tapas

* Ask those burning questions, chat & purchase books for yourself or as gifts

* Have your books signed by the authors

Q and A on life as an immigrant in Europe (or "expat" if you prefer.)

From ExpatFocus.com  (November 11, 2019) 

Brett Hetherington (Photo credit: robbiekavanagh.net)           
 

Who are you?

My name's Brett Hetherington and I'm a European (Australian/British) journalist, teacher and author (most recently of Slow Travels in Unsung Spain) living in Catalonia, Spain with my partner/wife Paula and our teenage son Hugo.


Where, when and why did you move abroad?

Our first move was to Japan in 1999 (where Hugo was born) and three years later we moved to England.

After two years there we moved to live in inland Catalonia in the Barcelona region and have been there since 2006.


What challenges did you face during the move?

Plenty! Languages were a big one because we all had to deal with Catalan as well as Spanish. Hugo was only five when we came, so he picked it up quickly with the help of some great teachers at his Catalan primary school. I've become functionally fluent in Spanish and generally understand Catalan okay, though I don't speak it.


How did you find somewhere to live?

Luckily, a teacher my wife was replacing was leaving his apartment in the town where we wanted to live, Vilafranca del Penedes. I communicated directly with the landlord (in a mixture of his poor English and my even worse Spanish). Later, we bought our own place in a small nearby town, almost a decade ago now.


Are there many other expats in your area?

Very few here, but 20 minutes away on the coast around Sitges (where we used to work) there is a strong expat community.


What is your relationship like with the locals?

Friendly, and some acquainatiances, but few real close friends, I would say. Most small-town, rural Catalan people call themselves "closed." They mean that they're not open to having many new social relationships outside their already established ones.


What do you like about life where you are?

The vineyards and open spaces of nature around. It's a great balance too when you mainly work in the big city of Barcelona.


What do you dislike about your expat life?

Well, I think of myself as an immigrant more than an expat because I don't see who we are as any different to others who came here from somewhere else for a better life. I do intensely dislike the bureaucracy and arbitary kinds of decision-making in Southern Europe. The low salaries that never rise are making life harder every year too.


What is the biggest cultural difference you have experienced between your new country and life back home?

This has been our home for a long time now, but if I compare it with where I lived most of my life, I'd say I miss the more spontaneous way people socialise and talk to strangers, as well as the multi-cultural population being a part of the mainstream.


What do you think of the food and drink in your new country? What are your particular likes or dislikes?

The food is wonderful: seasonal, fresh, still not too expensive in general. It's a big reason to live here. The range of vegetables is always limited to Mediterranean ones though, unless you want to pay big money for "ethnic" ingredients.

That's the only downside, because the seafood and usual high quality in well-priced "menus del dia" is great. There's fantastic, cheap wine in this area too.


What advice would you give to anyone following in your footsteps?

Do it! But be prepared to live in a low-wage economy unless you are very lucky. On the other hand, Spain/Catalonia is a great place to bring up kids, in my opinion.


What are your plans for the future?

Stay until we can't afford it anymore and if Brexit doesn't make life impossible or any more costly.


You can find Brett's book, Slow Travels in Unsung Spain, on Amazon.

VIDEO: Ursula Le Guin on capitalism and writing

"authors who can see through our fear-stricken society..." "sales departments given control over editorials" " the profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art"
"We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words".

(Thanks to Jennifer Camacho.)

"Women I admire" -- My latest opinion column for Catalonia Today magazine

Neus Català

It took the love of an extraordinary woman for me to start becoming aware. Aware of the huge continuous struggle and achievements of women in a world that makes it all so much harder than it usually is for men.

The #MeToo movement was a badly needed poke in the eye for plenty of men, and I would include myself in that demographic of ignorance. 

I had the general opinion that my half of the species had evolved to be largely respectful and kind towards the other half, but it’s now as clear as the glass ceiling that I had overestimated male behaviour.

During Women’s History Month in March, I also started to think specifically about which individual women I have a strong admiration for or those that have inspired me. In the news very recently, there has been the New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, teenage climate-crisis activist Greta Thunberg, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, as well as the youngest ever female US Congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 

They all have in common an energy, inner strength and brilliance that has been truly remarkable. These women offer great hope for the future in so many ways.

A bit further back in history, there were underrated figures, such as Mo Mowlam, who, working with a deadly brain tumour, was the UK government minister finally able to secure peace in Northern Ireland. (Her then Prime Minister Tony Blair recently completely neglected to include her vital role when he gave a public speech commemorating the 20th anniversary of these peace agreements.)

In the same area of study as the intellectual pioneer Ada Lovelace, there are many others who should be more well-known. Patri, an acquaintance of mine told me the other day about just one of these geniuses: Emmy Noether, a Jewish mathematician from the first part of the 20th century. Patri believes that in fact “most of what is done in the fields of modern physics and a huge branch of mathematics is based on something Noether came up with.” African-American Shirley Ann Jackson is another groundbreaking physicist who few outside the US would have heard of.

Closer to my own personal interests, I have been greatly touched by the work of writers such as Virginia Woolf, Helen Keller, Sylvia Plath, Joni Mitchell, Siri Hustvedt, Slavenka Drakulic and Joanna Bourke. Because of the quality of their work, these last three also deserve much wider recognition.

I also have a great respect for a black woman named Antonella Bundu (who has a Senegalese immigrant father) and is now running to be mayoress of Florence in the local elections at the end of this month. In an increasingly violent, right-wing part of Europe this kind of bravery and heart is both rare and wonderful.

But I don’t just admire women who are public figures. What about all the countless mothers, grandmothers, nurses, carers, teachers and women in the broader world of work who do what they do – and do it well – every day?

Sadly though, some are unable to fulfill their lives’ great potential and I cannot ignore this awful truth. Not long ago, a (male) friend sent me a poignant article that listed just eight young women aged between 16 and 27 who were killed by fanatical, extreme religious family members, all in parts of western Europe and the US. 

The reasons for their murders ranged from refusing an arranged marriage, to not covering their heads, to listening to American music, to getting a job. Here were true individuals. All died purely because they insisted on being themselves and to me, that too merits huge respect.

I would also acknowledge the life and recent passing of Neus Català, who will be well-known to many readers. Finally, I want to dedicate this article to all the victims of domestic violence across the globe.

[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, May 2019.]

    

"Barakat becomes [only] second woman to win International Prize for Arabic Fiction"

 "Lebanese author Hoda Barakat has won this year’s $50,000 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) for her epistolary novel The Night Mail (Dar al-Adab), only the second woman to get the award.

Judges picked Barakat from a six-strong shortlist featuring a record four female authors. She was announced as the winner at a packed ceremony in Abu Dhabi...on Tuesday night (23rd April).

In addition to winning $50,000, funding will be provided for the English translation of The Night Mail. An English edition has already been secured by Oneworld, scheduled to appear in 2020, and Barakat said the book, with its themes of migration, would be "very interesting" to readers in the current UK climate.

Her novel tells the stories of its characters through letters written to their relatives in Lebanon, interconnecting and overlapping during the course of the work. They left not only because of war but their home’s painful past and uncertain future. Its theme is described as “one of deep questioning and ambiguity, where boundaries have been erased, and old places and homes lost forever”.

In her speech, Barakat, who left Lebanon during its civil war and now lives in France, revealed she nearly did not enter the prize this year after only being longlisted in 2013 for her novel The Kingdom of This Earth (Dar al-Adab). However, she said Booker Prize Foundation chairman Jonathan Taylor helped convince her to enter again. She said: "The Arabic language is more important to me than any prize."

Speaking afterwards, she explained: "I don't seek exposure, I don't seek popularity."

"I don't care about statistics and numbers," she went on. "If I sell 15 books it's fine, if I sell 50 books then that's better."

She also praised the other shortlisted novels, saying: "This is proof that Arabic fiction is growing in position and stature to an equal level with other novels." "

Read more from source at The Bookseller here.

Now available: "Slow Travels in Unsung Spain" -- my latest non-fiction book

I'm very happy to say that my new non-fiction book is now available here.

"a compelling and eclectic narrative full of the unexpected" 
-- Nick Inman, Rough Guides

Slow Travels in Unsung Spain is a warts n’ all trip through some of Spain’s hidden gems: towns, cities, landscapes and cultural highlights that are typically overlooked by foreign tourists but which the Spanish often keep to themselves. 

"The author's mouthpiece" -- My latest review for Catalonia Today magazine

Elizabeth Costello is that very rare thing: a commercially successful writer of fiction from Australia – the far end of the world that has typically given very little attention (or much else) to people who use words for their living and plenty of attention to those who are professionals in sports or make big bucks some other way.

It’d be an exaggeration to say that someone like this author would have to be invented in fiction because she simply couldn’t exist in real Australian life, but this is almost a forgivable exaggeration, given the interests of the populace there in mainly competitive activities.

Being in the creative fields in Australia is often a bit like being labelled as a poser. In that wide, brown land the word “intellectual” is sometimes used as a type of insult.

At one point in JM Coetzee’s novel, Costello apologises to her audience: “I usually take care to conceal the extravagances of the imagination.”

Costello though, as the author sets her out at least, is as good as a polemicist in the public lectures where she is invited to speak.

Within a few paragraphs of her first long monologue about the philosophy of vegetarianism, I wondered whether I was actually listening to Coetzee’s real opinions because the arguments the character makes are so heartfelt. (A glimpse at the Acknowledgments section placed on the final page confirms that several of the chapters called “Lessons” were in fact published as non-fiction previously).

Later in the book, after Costello publicly compares abattoirs with the Nazi’s murder camps, we read variations on the first meat-free-living theme. “A sparrow knocked off a branch by a slingshot [or] a city annihilated from the air: who dare say which is worse?” a narrator asks on Costello’s behalf. 

Even the smell of a boiled egg “nauseates her” and this extreme Buddhist-like respect for the sacredness of all life swings between wholly convincing and repetitive ranting. It takes up large parts of the book, as does a dry examination of Greek myths.

In one of the most moving sections though, Costello talks about what she ultimately believes in when she has to justify herself. In lovely images she explains where frogs live during Australia’s long dry spells. 

Oddly, it is here that she seems to be speaking for the writer in general, saying this “is a story I present transparently, without disguise.”

The book is lifted and somewhat lightened by the contents of a letter that Costello writes to her sister, who is a nun. In a surprisingly erotic scene, she tells of her lack of inhibition and displays of “humanity” one afternoon in her younger years.

Religion plays a key part in the book and a clever analysis of “The Virgin” Mary is a highlight. Costello ultimately has a strange belief in the devil but not in god and this forms a counterbalance with her sister and another author she battles with.

I also speculated about the possibility of Costello having been modelled on the great writer, VS Naipaul, clearly also a real arrogant doo-dah and a highly selective eater but undoubtedly deserving of his Nobel Prize for titles such as “A House for Mr Biswas”. Costello is best known for her novel “The House on Eccles Street”.

JM Coetzee’s semi-autobiographical “Boyhood” is a tighter, more consistent book than “Elizabeth Costello” but this book about a strong-minded woman is still certainly worth a read.

(This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, January 2019.)