The past is something that captivates both writer and reader. And in years of changes like the ones we are experiencing, it is not superfluous to remember and revisit it. This need may be one of the main reasons why several titles from very different publishers have been encouraged to undertake this journey through time. Ignacio Martínez de Pisón, for example, traces the first Francoism with very varied characters in Castillos de fuego. A convulsive era that recalls one of the most atrocious periods in the history of Spain at peace.
The same dark era, alternated with the present, is remembered by cartoonist Paco Roca and journalist Rodrigo Terrasa in their latest graphic work, El abismo del olvido (A stiberri Ediciones), with which they denounce mass graves and other barbarities that they commit in the disputes and claim the eternal search of some people to provide dignity to theirs after death.
The Northern Irish author Maggie O'Farrell moves to a very different, but also past, era, who, after the international success of Hamnet (2021), decides to write El retrat de matrimoni (The Other / Libros del Asteroide), about Florence in 1560, to embrace the third daughter of the Grand Duke Cosimo de' Medici, forced to marry.
In the field of essay, the trend continues with Timothy Garton Ash, who in Europe: A Personal History (Arcadia / Taurus) has traveled and documented the annals of the Old Continent of the last forty years in order to have a clearer vision of the present and of the future
In the narrative in Catalan, Sergi Pàmies also allies himself with memory in A les dues seran les tres, where we appreciate a faithful commitment both to the past and to fantasy, two terms that offer an infinite number of possibilities. The author provides historical events and private anecdotes, in which there is no lack of tenderness and irony, and which aim to put together a solid account with which to reflect.
The following 30 titles have been chosen based on their literary quality – not their success or popular impact – and feature veteran authors, such as Antonio Muñoz Molina or Mario Vargas Llosa, as well as younger established voices. headed by Irene Solà, or newcomers who are arriving on the literary scene in a big way, such as Bonnie Garmus.
