An uncomfortable fable, an “absorbing and disturbing” game of mirrors and a reflection on love and the contradictions of desire. If last year the prize was awarded to the acid and austere portrait of the precariousness of the debutant Andrea Genovart, the Llibres Anagrama de Novel·la prize landed this year at the doors of ‘Com el so d’un batec en un microfon ‘, a novel with which the Barcelona native Clara Queraltó (1988) affirms her commitment to a genre in which she began a few years ago with “Et diré R.”. Before that, the professor of Catalan language and literature had also made her debut in short films with “El que pensen els altres”, a collection of stories with which she won the Mercè Rodoreda Prize in 2017. According to Mita Casacuberta, carries -word of the jury “Com el so d’un batec en un microfon” is the story of a summer love which, “obviously, is not just that”. On the surface, the summer relationship between Gabriela, a young woman who spends the summer in her grandfather’s town working as a librarian, and Quim, a sound technician on the verge of forty who has rented a house to telecommute and to rest. “I wanted to talk about desire, the learned and the irrational; about how we relate to what we desire and how desire changes at 18 and 39,” Queraltó explained. The ages, of course, are those of Gabriela and Quim, linked voices of this mirror story which, according to the writer and member of the jury Jordi Puntí, “invites us to contemplate the gestures of romantic seduction in the era of ‘no means’. no’.” and women’s empowerment. “I like to be on the limit, since the age is legal, there is consent, but it is clear that relationships of power and privilege are established. “I am interested in the nature of this type of relationship,” explained Queraltó, for whom one of the challenges of the novel was the point of view, “where he places his gaze”. “It’s the same story explained from two different points of view, which means it’s no longer the same story.” added. Standard Related News No César Pérez Gellida, 2024 Nadal Prize Sergi Doria The author from Valladolid was honored for his novel ‘Under the dry land’, which takes place in rural Extremadura and caciquil in 1917. The jury, composed of Casacuberta , Puntí, Guillem Gisbert, Imma Monsó, Sergi Pàmies and the editors Isabel Obiols and Silvia Sesé, unanimously chose ‘Com el so d’un batec en un micròfon’ among the 106 originals, the absolute record for the price, awarded for the prize, “The discovery of the story lies not so much in the female point of view which explains to us a summer craze of which she believes to mark the steps, but in the male point of view which, by retracing them, reveals to us the content of his silent submission,” said writer Imma Monsó. “Until not long ago, having a relationship with someone older made you feel valued,” recognized Queraltó. The Llibres Prize Anagrama by Novel·la, worth 12,000 euros, has distinguished since its creation in 2016 Albert Forns, Tina Vallès, Llucia Ramis, Irene Solà, Anna Ballbona, Pol Guasch and Andrea Genovart,
