Boulder: Shortlisted for the 2023 International Booker Prize

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En esta ocasión nuestra protagonista es Boulder, una mujer madura que nos ofrece su vida y todos sus pensamientos. Una mujer solitaria y con las cosas claras que un buen día, llevada por el deseo y lo que presupone que es el amor, deja el océano y su trabajo en un barco, para trasladarse a tierra y empezar una vida típica a la que no sabe si se acostumbrará. Así pues, acompañamos a Boulder en el viaje hacia lo común, una casa, una mujer y una hija. La normalidad de una vida de la que no sabe qué esperar. Every translation is a collaboration, regardless of how closely you work with the author. This is the second book I’ve translated by Eva Baltasar – I’m working on the third now – and my familiarity with her work informed the choices I made in Boulder. Of course, I also sent Eva some queries after finishing a draft. She has always been helpful, receptive and respectful of my work, and it’s a joy when that trust can flow in both directions.’ The announcement of the shortlist follows research by Nielsen for the Booker Prize Foundation that shows the biggest group of translated fiction readers in the UK is made up of 25 to 34-year-olds, compared with 60 to 84-year-olds for fiction as a whole. Proud to announce that while Boulder did not win the Booker International, it is in fact the WINNER of the s.penkevich Prize for Badass Prose, awarded by a hand-selected panel of my own hands for being the best book of 2022 I most enthusiastically forced people to read. It comes with a cash prize of whatever I can find in my couch and some dope prestige, I swear. If you see Eva Baltasar let her know.

Boulder by Eva Baltasar - Publishers Weekly Boulder by Eva Baltasar - Publishers Weekly

The Gospel According to the New World by Maryse Condé, translated by Richard Philcox (World Editions) Young men contend with the violence and corruption of Rio de Janerio in this tantalizing debut from Brazilian Martins. The characters in these stories represent a full spectrum of favela life, from Continue reading » La esperada segunda novela de la escritora y poeta Eva Baltasar llega en traducción de Nicole d'Amonville para los lectores en lengua española. Dos años después de su exitoso debut en catalán con Permagel(Club Editor, 2018), la autora firma una historia tan poética y vibrante como la que la dio a conocer.Baltasar keeps the narrative at a distance from the events, told in sweeping generalizations of large swaths of time through Boulder’s reflections upon them. There are few characters (even fewer with names) emphasizing her feelings of isolation and there is basically no dialogue—just summaries of conversations/arguments and entirely framed by Boulder—furthering the characterization of her as wanting control over her own life. The irony is, however, that her sense of control is also dominated by the agency of desires. ‘ The fact that I’m acting on impulse doesn’t make me guilty, it makes me human,’ she writes, and one thing that can be said about Boulder is that she owns her own flaws as well as strengths and is unapologetically who she is. The trouble, it seems, is when she must compromise on who she is, doing so out of love but feeling the ‘self’ withering in the process. Permagel', d'Eva Baltasar: crònica d'un triomf editorial (Jordi Nopca)". llegim.ara.cat. June 27, 2018 . Retrieved February 3, 2019. Much of the novel is concerned with the relationship between Samsa and Boulder, and the changes that ensue when Samsa decides she would like a child. ‘She looks at me with those blue eyes that fade to gray in the warm apartment light, and I have the feeling she has everything, that she is one and whole, like a god. That, somehow, her desire for a child spoils her.’ With Boulder ambivalent towards children and parenting, Baltasar has written a subversion of motherhood – something we don’t often see depicted in literature or art. Does this feel like an accurate portrayal? If so, why do we not see more of this point of view?

Eva Baltasar | And Other Stories Eva Baltasar | And Other Stories

Qué fuerte, qué fuerza. No llegan a 120 páginas, pero no sobra ni una frase. Tengo que darle otra vuelta, porque estoy seguro de que me he perdido ideas, imágenes......

Eva Baltasar amazed me last year [with Permafrost], and my conversion has been now been completed.’ Le texte interpelle par sa dureté et réalisme, mais sans aucun pathos, cru et féroce avec des moments d'une grande sensualité. Calling to mind the work of Herve Guibert and Olivia Laing, Permafrost is an iron fist swathed in velvet, a book at once inviting and intimidating, lush and severe, enormously witty, thoroughly intelligent, and devastatingly emotional. It is a text that trusts the wisdom of the body, finding pleasure everywhere—even in suicide, death, and disaster; this is the most weirdly uplifting book I have read in years, perhaps because it holds at its core such affection for all the nuances of being. Seamless, delicious, and nothing short of genius, Baltasar’s fiction debut gives us “the whole crush of humanity[…] concentrated in a place that is absolutely personal.”’ Rebecca Tamás