New Catalan Fiction issue of RCF

This actually came out a month or two ago, but I recently received the new Review of Contemporary Fiction, which is a special focus issue on New Catalan Fiction. (Full disclosure: I set this project into motion at Dalkey Archive after returning from a trip to Barcelona, but left before seeing it to fruition.)

It’s a very good collection—which isn’t surprising, due to the quality of Catalan fiction and the fact that everything the Institut Ramon Llull is involved with is always of very high quality—with a “Then” section featuring classic Catalan authors (such as Merce Rodoreda, whose Death and Springtime we’re bringing out next summer) and a “And Now” section with pieces from a number of more contemporary authors, such as Quim Monzo, Albert Sanchez Pinol, and Empar Moliner.

As Jaume Subirana (the guest editor) made an excellent selection, although as he points out in his intro, there are a number of equally worthy writers (Jaume Cabre, Biel Mesquida, Jorida Llavina) that had to be left due to the lack of space.

Mary Ann Newman’s afterword is also very interesting, putting the selections into a broader, linked context. (I would actually recommend reading this before the individual pieces to get a better sense of Catalan literary history.) Another reason this collection is so strong is because of the quality of the translators. In addition to Mary Ann Newman, other pieces are translated by Peter Bush, Martha Tennent, and Matthew Tree, among others.