The flat
Rafael Azcona Pumpkin Seeds
The Pepitas de Calabaza publishing house publishes, in a very timely way - it must be said -, the original text by Rafael Azcona that, over time, would become the very nice movie The Apartment, de Marco Ferreri and Isidoro Martínez Ferry. A comedy story that, even though it's a tragedy, seems to have no remedy. JAIME ORTEGA (Per-r-ucho)
The goodbyes
Cecilia F. Santomé · Consonni
What great work the girls from Consonni are doing for literature!! They disseminate the wonderful works of Catalan authors to the rest of the Spanish state by translating them into Spanish and they give us the same with Galician and Basque authors. How lucky it is to be able to enjoy this rural Galicia and the delicate and close prose of Cecilia narrating a wake.! ALODIA CLEMENTE (The Red)
Principle, half, fin
Valeria Luiselli · Feltrinelli Editores
After the harshness of his previous novel, sound desert, Luiselli returns to the fray with a warm and sparkling novel, in which mother and daughter, looking for a new beginning, They leave light for Sicily. There they end up digging through time in search of answers., and on his way to family origins, mythical and geological, They glimpse a possible future that connects granddaughters and grandmothers, myths and stones, writing and memory. SAINTS LEMOINE (The Bathysphere)
Give me poison I want to live
Leticia Sala · Anagram
In Give me poison I want to live, Leticia Sala puts her finger—still with traces of cream—into the wound: the female fear of aging in a world obsessed with looking young. Open the melon of aesthetic pressure, and the result is a lucid essay, uncomfortable and very human that does not judge, but rather invites debate and questions. You read it as when you apply serum at three in the morning: with guilt, desire and the secret hope to continue shining a little more. MAMEN MONSORIU (Bookshop The Empire)
Journey to a new world
Enric Juliana and Esteban Hernández · Arpa
Nobody knows about maps like Enric Juliana, no one explains the world like him. In this Journey to a new world conversa con Esteban Hernández para dejarnos píldoras de sabiduría geopolítica y nacional que explican por qué el mundo está hecho unos zorros. Dos periodistas de hondo calado intelectual se juntan para contarnos cómo está queriendo Estados Unidos reafirmar la autoridad del dólar en el mercado internacional de hidrocarburos y controlar el Ártico, por qué los gobiernos democráticos están virando hacia nuevas formas de autoritarismo y en qué medida Europa (with the Franco-German axis distanced) is becoming an irrelevant actor on the international stage. Definitely, how it is kicking with fury and machunidad the renewed Yankee empire in the face of the loss of its hegemony against China. The result is a new, more chaotic world., harsh and ruthless in which social networks are amplifying fears of an uncertain future in which AI will have a lot to say and loneliness will set the pace. Loneliness radicalizes, especially in a world that distrusts the future, and when it is not clear what to expect, order request returns. The thousand keys that the new Arpa artifact provides are a support to understand a little better this very complex world in which we walk.. S.M.
Psychopomp
Amélie Nothomb · Anagram
The psychopomp is the mythological figure that accompanies souls during the transit to the other shore.. It is the friendly presence that calms the psyche, already stripped of the body, and that guides its steps during the first leg of its journey to the beyond.. Many cultures identify the psychopomp with a bird or a flying being., from Celtic traditions to Mesoamerican peoples, passing through the Greek Hermes with winged sandals who accompanies the deceased to the underworld or the white-winged angels of the Judeo-Christian narrative. In his last book, Amélie Nothomb explains her relationship with the dead, talks about the craft of writing, He remembers his childhood and praises the ancient Greeks. But in this book, Amélie Nothomb escribe, above all, of birds. In the kind of autobiographical treatise on ornithology that is Psychopomp, the author describes her life in Asia. Amélie temporarily nests with her family in different places: from Japan to China and from Burma to India; Their childhood and adolescence are comparable to a constant avian migration in which different countries become lagoons where they rest before resuming their journey..
In Psychopomp, Amélie's childhood story goes hand in hand with her passion for birds: the peking crows, japanese cranes, Indian swallows and, very especially, his beloved nightjar in Bangladesh, a dragon-like bird whose flight hypnotizes her. The girl Amélie investigates ways to get off the ground: try cycling, to swim, to walk on ballet pointe. His childhood in Asia takes place between his avian obsession and his fascination with classical languages and his habit of dissecting words.: identify the etymology, which is like going back to the moment when the word breaks the shell, It is fantastic fun for a girl of no age, how she describes herself.
Nothomb vindicates the individuality of birds: not all goldfinches sing the same, Not all seagulls fly the same way.. like human beings, each bird has a unique personality. Birds are adaptable and persevering beings, assures remembering that, a Laos, Only brave birds manage to cross the monstrous Mekong in its widest reaches. This perseverance, which Amélie very aptly exemplifies by recalling the fact that it took dinosaurs millions of years to learn to fly, links directly to writing: just as it didn't happen that one day a dinosaur woke up and took flight, whoever aspires to write must strive, be obstinate. Stamp over and over again until you find your own flight technique, the writing. The writer, says Nothomb, just like the bird, it should be light; you have to eliminate the accessory, what is not essential, whether in the air or on paper. Too many words will provoke, irremediably, let the writer crash, make your writing heavy and erratic.
A feeling of the caliber of Amélie's love for birds could only lead to the most absolute identification with the loved object.; in your own words, devotion to a furtive being predisposes her to stalking: for an ornithologist, Sighting a bird between the branches of a tree or in the grayness of a cliff is a triumph, same as, points out the author, Ancient sailors considered it a victory to spot the first bird on the high seas., that revealed the proximity of the coast. Over the years, Amélie links her existence to avian customs until she acquires lateral vision and develops the ability to see the predator arriving., often in the guise of literary critic. Total identification comes at the moment when Amélie realizes that she herself aspires to become a psychopomp., to hold the hand of the loved one already stripped of his physicality, disoriented and hesitant, and lead him lovingly and patiently towards the last lintel. and then come back, pleased, to get up early like a bird to sit at his desk and continue perfecting his plowing skills, with increasing mastery, air currents. ELENA P. MURIANA
