Conversations about books and writing
How do we construct literary fiction? What kind of relationships are established between authors and readers using words? Let's take another look at some of our most recent chats with writers who have visited the CCCB to speak to us about their books and the art of imagining and creating stories.
Olga Tokarczuk
Literature, the Oldest of Continents
The Nobel Literature laureate Olga Tokarczuk speaks about her career and invites her listeners to think about literature as a territory in which to write another story for Europe.
Nariné Abgarian and Marta Nin
Writing Inland
The intersection between sweetness, humour and tragedy is the space that Narine Abgaryan chooses to inhabit to narrate the lives of ordinary people in Armenia and tell us about their mundane concerns, small victories and subtle vendettas. In this session, Abgaryan talks with her ...
Ottessa Moshfegh and Lucia Lijtmaer
The art of introspection
Writer Ottessa Moshfegh, author of the acclaimed My Year of Rest and Relaxation and one of the most unique voices of her generation, talks with writer Lucía Lijtmaer in the wake of the publication in Catalan and Spanish of her first work, McGlue.
Eva Baltasar, Sara Mesa, Eider Rodríguez and Andrea Gumes
Family Lexicons
From different literary geographies that unfold in Catalan, Basque and Spanish, three of the most significant authors of their generation speak with journalist Andrea Gumes of the centrality of the concept of family in their works.
Virginie Despentes, Alana S. Portero and Berta Gómez Santo Tomás
Despite everything
Two of the most vigorous representatives of contemporary feminism, the writers Virginie Despentes and Alana S. Portero talk with journalist Berta Gómez Santo Tomás about love, identity, the culture of cancellation and how to move forward despite everything.
Miquel Missé, Clara Aguilar, Marina Garcés and Pol Guasch
Plotting friendship
To mark the publication of Pol Guasch’s new novel, Ofert a les mans, el paradís crema – a story of friendship in an uninhabitable world – a few friends come together. These are Miquel Missé, Clara Aguilar, Marina Garcés and Pol Guasch, ...
Mariana Enriquez and Olga Merino
Living in a Time of Loss
On the occasion of the publication of her book, Alguien camina sobre tu tumba (Someone’s Walking on Your Grave, Anagrama, 2021), the writer Mariana Enriquez speaks with the also writer Olga Merino about the role played by death in our imaginary and the possibility of transforming it.
Maggie O'Farrell
The writer Maggie O'Farrell, the author of the award-winning Hamnet and one of the undisputed voices of Anglo-Saxon literature, talks to the journalist Anna Guitart on the occasion of the publication of her latest novel The Marriage Portrait.
Cristina Rivera Garza: “To write is to create empty space”
In this interview, Cristina Rivera Garza, director of the Ph.D. in Creative Writing in Spanish at the University of Houston – the first Ph.D. of its kind in the United States – gives us a master class on writing as a process and as a collective act of accompanying readers. Read ...
Carme Riera and Gemma Ruiz
Of Women and Literature
Dialogue between the only two women with the distinction of having been awarded the Premi Sant Jordi (St George Prize) for the novel in the last twenty years. Gemma Ruiz, a well-known journalist who made her literary debut in 2016 with the novel Argelagues, celebrates another great ...
Ali Smith
Making political writing into an art
Writer Ali Smith and filmmaker Sarah Wood talk with journalist Anna Guitart about their audiovisual piece Why We Write (2021), in which Smith pays tribute to the figure of Orwell and reflects on the shared vocation of making political writing into art.
Amélie Nothomb and Sergi Pàmies
The thirst for writing
Amélie Nothomb talks with the writer Sergi Pàmies, who has translated all of her books into Spanish, about her graphomania - she writes at least four hours a day - and about the origin of her stories, which have made her one of the great authors of French literature.
Margaret Atwood
Looking at the future
Margaret Atwood talks to cultural journalist Anna Guitart. The writer, famous for works such as The Handmaid’s Tale, talks about the future of human beings on a planet under threat, while reviewing her biography and her literary career.
Colson Whitehead
Harlem resonances
El autor Colson Whitehead habla con la escritora y traductora Míriam Cano sobre su obra y su última novela, El ritmo de Harlem, una novela sobre desigualdades de clase y la discriminación racial que aún hoy dominan la sociedad estadounidense.
Eva Baltasar
Lonely hunter's instinct
In this conversation with the journalist Magí Camps, we discover the universe hidden in Mamut, the latest work of this sculptress of language, where the search for solitude and the call of motherhood take us to a rural world where poetry, black humor and animality are not absent.
Colm Tóibín and Jordi Puntí
The Secret Life of Writers
The Irish writer Colm Tóibín, who has just published The Magician, speaks with the writer Jordi Puntí about the power of fiction when offering insights into the lives of great creators.
Jeanette Winterson: “I believe in human beings, even though they have done some terrible things”
In the late 20th century, Jeanette Winterson forged a path in the literary world with books such as Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Written on the Body and The Passion, titles which would attract a cult following and would crown her as a leading author for the queer community.
Maria Stepanova
In memory of memory
The poet and essayist Maria Stepanova, one of the great figures of contemporary Russian literature, talks with the translator and curator of Other Voices, Other Russias, Jorge Ferrer about her work, a reflection on history and the mechanisms of memory.
Ludmila Ulitskaya and Vladimir Sorokin
History, novel, print
The history of Russia is also the history of a desire to remain at the center of the universal story. The successive vicissitudes of this will —the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, post-communist Russia— affect and are inscribed in the lives and literary works. Ulitskaya and Sorokin, ...
Samanta Schweblin: “The Latin American women authors of my generation feel the joy of having arrived at a party in full swing”
Translated into more than 25 languages and renowned for the magnetism of her fantastic stories, Argentinean writer Samanta Schweblin explains how she created two of her most well-known works: Little Eyes and Fever Dream. She talks about writing during the pandemic ...
Rebecca Solnit
Writing, a gesture of hope
American writer and activist Rebecca Solnit talks about the influence of George Orwell's work on her career as an essayist and reveals a new, more optimistic and hopeful look at the legacy of the writer of 1984.
Anna Starobínets
Uses of the imagination
The novelist Anna Stabironets, one of the most outstanding authors of the new generation of Russian writers of fantastic fiction, talks to the writer Roser Cabré-Verdiell about the trade of explaining the imaginable and also the unimaginable.
Benjamín Labatut and Eloy Fernández Porta
Outside reason
How can we talk about mental health in the context of today's society? How can we find the meaning again after crossing the limit? Writers Benjamín Labatut and Eloy Fernández Porta talk, in a conversation moderated by journalist and writer Anna Pacheco, about madness, malaise and mental health due to the publication of their books La piedra de la locura and Los brotes negros.
Judith Schalansky: “Our planet is also an island in the known universe”
Books such as Atlas of Remote Islands and An Inventory of Losses have made Judith Schalansky a unique name in the world of literature. Taking advantage of her visit to the CCCB, we talk to her about her work, which invites readers to travel through a universe ...
Isaac Rosa and Gemma Barricarte
The Future is Ours
The writer Isaac Rosa and the architect and activist Gemma Barricarte talk about the novel Lugar seguro to explore narratives that contribute to build future horizons.