Barcelona Ink Books

Take Six is a celebration of six remarkable Catalan women writers: Víctor Català, Rosa Maria Arquimbau, Mercè Rodoreda, Carme Riera, Imma Monsó and Teresa Solana
The stories span almost hundred and twenty years, starting with Víctor Català (the nom de plume of Caterina Albert) whose stories set in Barcelona, the Catalan countryside and fishing villages over half a century create a fictional universe in which hundreds of characters contest the unhappy destinies history has dealt them. Arquimbau and Rodoreda, active feminists and champions of Catalan, capture the heady atmosphere in Barcelona prior to the fascist insurrection on 1936 and the horror of war and exile in N**i occupied France. The three living writers focus on the ironies of the transition from dictatorship to democracy with wit and compassion as women in their society struggle against a legacy of machismo and entrenched patriarchal attitudes.
Many Catalan women novelists have been translated into English over the last twenty years and this anthology is witness to a vigorous tradition of short story writing that can be light-hearted and frivolous, tragic and noir, in a variety of styles that will delight and captivate readers.

Dedalus Publishers.

Fifty years after Franco’s death, and almost ninety since the Civil War began, the scars of violence still run deep in Spain.

Nick Lloyd traces this legacy through a series of road trips. Travelling through Catalonia and Aragón, among the last Republican strongholds, he visits battle sites, museums, memorials and more. Speaking with historians, local guides and descendants of International Brigaders, he discovers how places and objects offer clues to a painful past. A Barcelona plaque, metres from the author’s home, commemorates the birthplace of Francesc Boix, a photographer whose short but eventful life took him from the Catalan front to the Nuremberg witness box. In Huesca, a dogged journalist builds monuments to his city’s wartime resistance, while the preserved ruins of Belchite mark the devastation of fierce street fighting. A journey across the Franco-Spanish border follows the footsteps of the anti-fascist refugees later incarcerated in French concentration camps.

As debates over ‘historical memory’ highlight enduring political rifts, Lloyd powerfully chronicles how war is remembered—or not—in Spain and beyond.

Selected poems and mishapes. Available now from La Central llibreries and of course, that place online.

Interesting historical fiction by debut author and Barcelona veteran Julia Slack.

The new revamp of the huge English section of La Central Raval, combined with its beautiful cafe-garden, surely makes it the best bookshop for English books this 2024.