"Set in the Pyrenees and giving voice to everything from mountains to storms, mushrooms to dogs, Irene Solà's (Granta, translated from Catalan by Mara Faye Lethem) English-language debut When I Sing, Mountains Dance is a playful and polyphonic". This is how the book by the writer from Malla is described by The Guardian newspaper, which has included Canto jo i la muntanya balla (I sing and the mountain dances, in its Spanish edition) among the best fiction books of 2002.
A new recognition for the Catalan writer and collaborator of La Vanguardia, whose name appears on this list along with names like Hanya Yanagihara, whose To Paradise heads this ranking of the best of 2022.
On the list we also find books and authors with a long history such as El pasajero, by Stella Maris, or Lessons, by Ian McEwan, whose translation has not yet reached Spain.
Canto jo i la muntanya balla, which, among other awards, won the Anagrama prize in 2019, addresses a rural world where all elements have their own voice: people, but also animals, mushrooms, clouds and even the own mountain. Located in the Pre-Pyrenees, between Camprodon and Prats de Molló -an area that the author knows well-, the author makes use of tradition to put it at the service of a modern literary approach.
The possibilities of this rural work also led it to the theater with notable critical and public success. Specifically in February of last year, La Perla 29 premiered at the Biblioteca de Catalunya, directed by Guillem Albà and Joan Arqué, winning three Max Awards and eight Butaca Awards.
