Barcelona is also read (II)
A few weeks ago, we presented a list of authors and works that, in addition to entertaining us with their plots, also portray the past of our neighborhoods. And it is that Barcelona can also be read and can be visited among the pages of Santiago Rusiñol, Carmen Laforet, or Mercè Rodoreda. Today we introduce new suggestions of authors and books with which to rediscover our city.
Eduardo Mendoza
If there is an author who has managed to portray Barcelona like no other, it is undoubtedly Eduardo Mendoza. From the pre-Olympic Barcelona depicted in the hilarious No Word from Gurb (1991) to the early 20th-century labor struggles in The Truth About the Savolta Case (1975), to what many consider his masterpiece: The City of Marvels (1986). This novel is a faithful portrayal of the lights and shadows that the city experienced under the influence of Modernism and the bourgeoisie between the Universal Exposition of 1888 and the International Exposition of 1929.
Juan Marsé: Last Evenings with Teresa
Bourgeois and workers. Catalans and 'charnegos'. El Carmelo and Sant Gervasi. In Last Evenings with Teresa, Juan Marsé presents the convergence of two antagonistic worlds through the story that brings together Manolo, the Pijoaparte, an Andalusian immigrant who survives in Barcelona as a thief, and Teresa, a young bourgeois woman eager to live a risky adventure that takes her out of her placid life. Also set in Barcelona, Marsé published The Shanghai Spell, which was adapted into a film in the 90s by Fernando Trueba
Vázquez Montalbán: Pepe Carvalho
Manuel Vázquez Montalbán's childhood in El Raval led him to set the adventures of Pepe Carvalho, a private detective and protagonist in a series of noir novels that the Barcelona-born writer used to portray the social, political, and cultural reality of Barcelona, and the rest of Spain in the last 40 years of the 20th century. Initially a militant of the Communist Party and later a CIA agent, Carvalho is a complex and contradictory man of Galician origin who makes Barcelona his city. Such is the significance that the character created by Vázquez-Montalbán acquired in Barcelona that the City Council annually awards the Pepe Carvalho prize for noir novels.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: The Shadow of the Wind tetralogy
The Gothic Quarter, Tibidabo Avenue, La Rotonda, the Ritz Hotel, the shanties of Somorrostro, the Montjuic castle prison, the terrifying police station on Via Layetana... and we could go on with an endless list of real locations that Carlos Ruiz Zafón used to build the unique universe under which the four novels that make up the saga The Shadow of the Wind, which begins with Daniel Senpere and his father's visit to the so-called Cemetery of Forgotten Books, where the young man will find a book that will change his existence. Such was the success of the tetralogy that for years there have been guided tours offered through the different settings of the novels.
Ildefonso Falcones: Cathedral of the Sea
Emerging during the peak of The Pillars of the Earth, The Cathedral of the Sea transports us to medieval Barcelona, where the Call was a ghetto for Jews who could not leave after dusk. The construction of the church of Santa María del Mar by the fishermen of the Ribera district serves as a backdrop for Ildefonso Falcones to weave a story of love, hate, envy, betrayal, and revenge set in the 14th century. Currently, the television adaptation is pending broadcast as a series produced by A3 Media.
And like these examples, there are many more. These are all that are present, but not all that exist. The list of books set in Barcelona would continue with works like Wait for Me in Heaven (Maruja Torres), The Weight of Straw (Terenci Moix), or Statue with Pigeons (Luis Goytisolo). Dozens of works that have made Barcelona an immortal city.
