Joan Enric Barceló (Vidreres, 1981) is one of Els Amics de les Arts, and he admits that he was surprised and even wrinkled his nose at the beginning when he saw books "by people I didn't classify as writers at first". and names such as Gerard Quintana, Lluís Llach or Xarim Aresté appear. But that hasn't stopped him from throwing himself into it and he publishes Morir sabent poques coses (Periscopi), a collection of stories about death, mourning and the consequences for the environment of the deceased.
Each story has a very different style, whether they are third-person narrations, dialogues in which we only read one of the interlocutors, a story filled with footnotes that bring another point of view to what is explained in the main text or a narrative within another within another. "The most important thing was to find a voice, the success was to find the way to tell each story", explains the author, who knows that "the secret is never in the content, but in the form, an idea that is also new, clear".
The book comes from this restlessness, because "there were things I wanted to explain that didn't fit into a song, which has very clear parameters, between three and a half and five minutes, a refrain, a structure, a bridge. .. I didn't know what to do with some of the ideas I had and, looking to give them an outlet, in 2016 I signed up for the Girona Writing School". One of the reasons was that it was directed by Vicenç Pagès Jordà, his favorite writer: "I did the whole itinerary with the ultimate goal of having him in front of me, and in 2017 we met, he adopted my project and we started working with what is today this book". After the course, "with varying frequency, I sent him versions and then he would call me and we would spend a morning talking about it. It was a privilege that he read me in an absolutely altruistic way and sparred with me, until one day he told me that I had to look for a publisher", he recalls.
He sent it to Periscope, where they made it clear that it was not because he was a well-known musician that they would publish it: "Fantastic, because it was exactly what I was looking for, that someone believed it as much or more than I did". With the publisher, he finished giving it shape, spurring some stories and at the same time adding new ones, and they found a circularity, with elements that are repeated forming the same world - as happens in books that have just been released such as those of Sergi Pàmies or Carlota Gurt–.
The fact that death surrounds the book - there are also some characters who try and don't get away - was a process: "When I read four or five I saw that everyone was talking about it, because it is one of the big themes". It is approached from different and surprising perspectives, such as the case of a man "who had the gift most desired by the human being, to be immortal, and this made him a wretch and condemned the people in his around". After all, the author has "dedicated himself to photographing or spying on characters in the most pathetic moment of their existence", with a sense of humor and the absurd.
With clear references such as Pere Calders or David Foster Wallace, Barceló does not consider writing, however, as a plan B in his career: "My work and what I earn a living with is music, and that was a personal challenge. I was very clear about what I wanted to do and who I wanted to do it with; I wanted to be here." At the same time, he is also aware that "there are people who will not read the book because of who I am and people who will read it because of who I am, but I hope that when you turn the last page you will say that what I have proposed was worth it".
