Bruno Blog

Almost everyone has heard of Schiller, the German poet and philosopher who, along with Goethe, is considered Germany’s most important playwrights and central figures of the Weimar classicism. Few know about the summer they spent together in 1794, the time when Carla Gracia places her novel “Nos recordaran”, published in Spanish by the publishing house Catedral and in Catalan by Univers, originally written in Catalan and English, as Carla has a PhD in creative writing from Bath Spa University in England, one of the most prestigious universities of art and creativity in the world. Her tutors, Tracy Brain; bestselling author behind the name Clare Kendall, and Gerard Woordward; Booker Prize shortlisted poet and novelist, supported her during the process of creating this novel, which is part of her PhD.

The novel uncovers the authors’ conflicts, their weaknesses, shadows and frailties, highlighting the women behind them, who made them flourish. Carla manages to make it not just another novel about two intellectuals, but a game of mirrors between women and men, a process of discovery that awakens the reader’s emotion to live those moments, not very well known, of two lives where the conflict of ideas and the artistic process is part of the story to understand these two relevant figures of the 18th century, Goethe and Schiller.

Carla manages to bring us closer to these two great men in a natural way and make us participants of an extraordinary world where light and shadows are mixed, a way that works very well literary speaking because readers want to know about the characters of this status, but they need this novel to approach them in a deep and at the same time, simple way, which Carla does with her eyes closed.

I think it is a novel of great quality that deserves to be bequeathed and translated into many more languages.

This week’s blog comes with a top recommendation. Míriam Tirado, author of the book Rabietas: Consejos y herramientas para lidiar con ellas con conciencia, humor y amor, already translated into Portuguese, Italian and German, Removidas, and several children’s books, which are already reference books among families such as El hilo invisible or Tengo un volcán, publishes tomorrow Límites with Ediciones Urano.

A great topic of debate nowadays, because there is a large group of parents who still think that raising from conscience is not setting limits. Precisely, what Míriam tries to transmit in this book is that limits must be set from conscience, but that there must always be limits in education, and that the sooner you apply them the better. However, the big question is, how do we do that? How do we avoid falling into authoritarianism? How do we avoid creating insecurities in the little ones?

In this book, Míriam shares with us her own doubts, learnings, challenges and achievements on the road to loving and responsible limits, exploring our own relationship with the limits, so that we are able to provide children with coherent containment. Children are like sponges and perceive everything that we (adults) feel, so we must also be aware of how we live our daily lives.

At home, we have always said the same thing: it is much easier to say yes than to say no, and avoid a conflict, but teaching when it is yes and when it is no implies transmitting to the new generations an education that is increasingly absent and, as a consequence, we are faced with lost young people who do not know how to get out of a comfort zone where they have been locked up, even without knowing it. Every day I realize how important it is to have parents and educators around us, that from conscience and love know how to set the right limits. Thank you Míriam, for one more book, an essential one for all families, and for this valuable contribution in the world of education, since one of the most complicated jobs that adults have is to educate, in the best possible way, the ones we love the most, and for that, we need tools to learn. This is what this book represents, and in capital letters.

During the last few days, we wake up hearing about Russia starting a war. Same as always, wars are unnecessary, and they end up affecting citizens. Most people want peace, even more after a pandemic in which it seems, we have not learned to be better. Fortunately, I am immersed in the world of books, which always teach you, and I wish we could understand their messages better.  

This week we are going to talk about a middle grade from Gabriel Garcia de Oro: Yo, Raquel Pris: ¡Mi robot tiene un problema!, has been published in Catalan and Spanish by La Galera. Our main character is a very normal girl living in 2058: she attends school, has homework to do, but she is upset because her parents do not approve to have a robot at home. The robots coexist with humans, but in this society, both have doubts about what to do in the future, kind of what happens now to teenagers. In 2058, this uncertainty does not affect the human beings but mostly, the robots. If they do not know their goal in life, their destiny is to end up at the scrap center, a situation Raquel wants to avoid. How can she help her friends? What would happen if humans went through something like that? This is a fun story with a brave and supportive protagonist.

This week, the last one of February, this space is focusing on children and young adult literature with a prestigious author: Ana Alcolea. She has published more than thirty titles for children and young adults and has won several prizes, such as the Cervantes Chico in recognition of her literary career. We are in front of a reputed author that this month publishes two novels: one for the little ones, THE NIGHT OF THE RED MOON published by Edebé and THE GIRLS IN THE 305 for the young adult market.

Both stories have the signature of a great author. THE NIGHT OF THE RED MOON is funny, casual, and magical. Which kid has never listened their parents say that their grandmother is a witch? Nonetheless, we think they say it in a metaphoric way. Regarding the grandmother as a witch is used instead of saying that she is evil and cruel. That summer, during the night of the red moon, strange things start to happen at home, and they start suspecting that they grandmother is a real witch, like the ones that can do magic: move things from one place to another and change the order of things. A fun parallelism that will lead to an ideal adventure for those who have already started in the world of reading.

On the other hand, THE GIRLS IN THE 305 is a novel set in the post-war era, during the last years of the dictatorship in Spain, where the historical setting is as important as the story. Six working and peasant girls live in a boarding school far from their homes and see life from a different perspective than the rest of their generation. They are the first women able to study and the know that it is their only change to thrive in life. In the middle of the school year, their teacher suggests staging a Shakespeare play: THE TEMPEST, and the environment in the female boarding school will mix with the social and political reality of the era where the desire for freedom, the exploration of their sexual orientation and first loves will be the main topics that will go along us in this novel full of reality in an era where the world was changing.

I am convinced that this novel will appeal to the young adult public, mostly women, but also their mothers and grandmothers because it is a clear crossover for those who read Edin Blyton, THE TWINS IN SAINT CLARA, I am sure they will fall in love with THE GIRLS IN THE 305.

Ana Alcolea comes back to the market with two novels for the two different fields that she knows best and where she has a lot of followers.

Through history, medicine has always been the science that everyone wants to see evolve because without it, we would not cure a lot of sickness that have appeared and will continue to appear because this has no end. We come from a pandemic where we have lived the importance of having a good health care, good professionals in the field and good scientists, and the importance of taking care of them all, not only when we feel unprotected. Those who work in the medical world is because it is their vocation, same as people who works in the art world, but this does not mean working at any price. Vocation and passion move mountains, but they need taking care of, to keep this nerve that keeps them alive. Coia Valls confirms that this novel is a tribute to those who have taken care of us throughout history.

I believe this is a really important issue to talk about before introducing this special book, the historic novel written by the author Coia Valls. THE ALCHEMY OF LIFE, published in Spanish by Destino and in Catalan by Columna, puts us in the 15^th century when the world was changing but medicine was stagnant in the old formula of the theriac. Nevertheless, there has always been men and women that searched new ways of healing the body and soul, who produced alchemy formulas to achieve the elixir of the eternal life. Often, they were seen as demented, delirious, or mere sorcerers and Magí Surroca is one of them, who searches old formulas to produce remedies. He is an alchemist living in Llívia, where Pau Vinyes also lives, the town doctor. Both arrive to Barcelona in a journey that will be a vital transformation. It is a moment of change, the theocentrism gives way to science.

Beatriu is another main character, she escapes from the convent of Vallbona de les Monge sans tries to get out of this stigmatization of witchery. Only the force of love and friendship and the absolute devotion to an ideal will allow an authentic life of freedom and plenitude. A novel where the characters are not black and white, they are not good or bad; the power of owning of something that heals, makes the best and the worst of each other surface. This book is like life, some people have moral interests and others prioritize the benefits, either the economical or the powersome ones. This leads us to an historic novel full of schemes placed in Llívia, where the most ancient pharmacy preserved in Europa can be found, Vallbona de les Monges, and Barcelona.

A moment of social transformation in the world, where medicine and science are two supports of the plot. The author said that she wrote the novel during the lockdown when the world was rushing to find a cure to COVID -THE ELIXIR-, everyone was scared and had mistrust but at the same time we had hope in science. As always, history repeats itself and looking at the past we can understand better the present.

A great novel, like all the novels that this author has published in her career, with all the ingredients to make the lovers on historic novels fall in love, but with something special in the background that excites me: there were people, and I want to believe that there still are today, with the intention to make the world a little better and give to the common good.