THE 34 TOP PICKS
IN SPANISH
from literary agencies at
FRANKFURT BOOK FAIR 2016
Dear All,
In this special edition for the Frankfurt Book Fair, The Spanish
Bookstage is bringing you the top 34 titles that Spanish-language
literary agencies are taking to the fair this year. These books, both
published and unpublished, by writers from Argentina, Chile,
Colombia, Mexico and Spain (Basque, Catalan and Spanish), have been
selected because they are expected to attract the greatest interest in
overseas markets in a wide range of genres.
If you would like more information about what Spanish-language
agencies have to offer at Frankfurt, don’t miss our website article:
What will Spanish-language literary agencies be selling at the
Frankfurt Book Fair?
Have a nice fair!
The Spanish Bookstage
[email protected]
All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the Proprietors.
Texts supplied by the publishers and agencies.
Index 1
1
Ana Alonso and Javier Pelegrín
Excalibur. Libro 1 de la Saga Britannia
10
Antonio García Ángel
Declive
(Excalibur. Britannia Book 1)
(Decay)
Sandra Bruna Agencia Literaria
MB Agencia Literaria
2
Roser Amills
Leonor, la Bachillera
11
Inés Garland
Una vida más verdadera
(Leonor, the Bachillera)
(A truer Life)
Zarana Agencia Literaria
Agencia Literaria CBQ
3
Fernando Aramburu
Patria
12
Verónica Gerber
Conjunto vacío
(Fatherland)
(Empty Set)
Tusquets Editores
Indent Literary Agency
4
Roberto Bolaño
El espíritu de la ciencia ficción
13
Montero Glez
El carmín y la sangre
(The Spirit of Science Fiction)
(The Lipstick and the Blood)
The Wylie Agency
Bookbank Literary Agency
5
Mar Bosch Oliveras
Les generacions espontànies
14
Arthur Gunn
El club de los mejores
(Spontaneous Generations)
(The Best Club)
Cristina Mora Literary &Film Agency
Oh!Books Agencia Literaria
6
Jesús Cañadas
Las tres muertes de Fermín Salvochea
15
Toni Hill
Los ángeles de hielo
(Three Times Death to Fermín Salvochea)
(The Ice Angels)
UnderCover Literary Agents
The Ella Sher Literary Agency
7
Chusita Fashion Fever
Esto no es un libro de sexo
16
Nuria Labari
Cosas que brillan cuando están rotas
(This is not a Sex Book)
(Things that Shine when they are Broken)
RBA Foreign Rights
SalmaiaLit
8
Julio Fajardo
Asamblea ordinaria
17
Marcelo Leonart
El libro rojo de la Historia de Chile
(General Assembly)
(The Red Book of the History of Chile)
Silvia Bastos Agencia Literaria
Ampi Margini Literary Agency
9
Paulina Flores
Qué vergüenza
18
Joan-Lluís Lluís
El navegant
(How Embarrasing)
(The Navigator)
Planeta LATAM Agency
Asterisc Agents
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Index 2
19
Lola López Mondéjar
Cada noche, cada noche
27
Eduardo Sacheri
La noche de la Usina
(Each and Every Night)
(The Night of the Power Plant)
A.C.E.R. Agencia Literaria
Agencia Literaria Irene Barki
20
Pablo Martín Sánchez
Tuyo es el mañana
28
Carles Sala i Vila
L’home de les mans de xocolata
(Tomorrow is yours)
(The Man with Chocolate Hands)
Quaderns Crema
Ute Körner Literary Agent
21
Laura Mavor
No eres lo que busco
29
Marcela Serrano
La Novena
(You’re not what I’m Looking for)
(La Novena)
Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial
Schavelzon Graham Agencia Literaria
22
Juan José Millás
Desde la sombra
30
Gonzalo Torné
Los años felices
(From the Shadows)
(The Happy Years)
Casanovas & Lynch Agencia Literaria
Editorial Anagrama
23
Rosa Montero
La carne
31
Kirmen Uribe
La hora de despertarnos juntos
(The Flesh)
(The Hour of Waking Together)
Agencia Literaria Carmen Balcells
Pontas Literary & Film Agency
24
Francisco Narla
Dónde aúllan las colinas
32
Ariel Urquiza
No hay risas en el cielo
(Where the Hills Howl)
(There’s no Laughter in the Sky)
Agencia Literaria Albardonedo
Literarische Agentur Mertin Witt
25
Cristina Redondo
Aspereza
33
Eloy Urroz
Demencia
(Roughness)
(Dementia)
Agencia Literaria Dos Passos
Antonia Kerrigan Literary Agency
26
Iván Repila
Prólogo para una guerra
34
Muriel Villanueva
La Gatera
(Prelude to a War)
(The Catflap)
Grupo Planeta
International Editors
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Ana Alonso and Javier Pelegrín
Excalibur. Libro 1 de la Saga Britannia (Excalibur. Britannia Book 1)
Suma, 2016
SPAIN
Rights holder: Sandra Bruna Agencia Literaria
YOUNG ADULT
Agent: Sandra Bruna
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
The first book of the saga Britannia. You can rediscover the Arthurian myth as it had
never counted.
Gwen, the heir of Britannia’s throne, runs away from the place the Saxons established
as London with help from a young knight, Lance. Together they will start a long escape
followed closely by a Briton warrior called Mordred, who wants to hunt the princess
for reasons they don’t know.
During the trip, the two kids start a relationship that will cripple once they arrive
at their destination, AquaeSulis. Gwen will meet Arthur there. And besides their
differences at the beginning, Gwen and Arthur will end up getting along, and together
they’ll start to look for the Excalibur sword. This sword holds the key to solve the
mysterious origin of Britannia and to mend the magic veil that protects the island,
which Mordred is trying to destroy.
Biography
Ana Alonso and Javier Pelegrín have teamed up to write a number of books, including the fantasy
& science fiction series La llave del tiempo, which has been published by Editorial Anaya and
translated into several languages. In 2008, they were awarded the Barco de Vapor Prize for El
secreto de If. They also have written together the trilogy Tatuaje (translated into five languages),
the series Agencia Salamandra and the graphic novel La ciudad transparente (Bologna’s White
Raven Prize in 2012), among others books, translated into German and Portuguese.
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1
Roser Amills
Leonor, la Bachillera (Leonor, the Bachillera)
Ifeelbook, 2016
CATALAN
Rights holder: Zarana Agencia Literaria
NARRATIVE NON-FICTION
Agent: Marta Sevilla
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
At the end of the 18th Century, when Revolution and guillotine are ruling European
politics, the social reality in Majorca island -a quiet and rural area in Spain- is still
very traditional.
Inside an intolerant society, Leonor is a great reader and decides to put into practice
the principles of the French Revolution, starting the first school for girls in the island.
Leonor is different to the other girls, she doesn’t want to be like them; they only wish
to find a “good husband”. She is smart, alive, clever, and she also is very seductive
to men, who don’t know how to touch her heart. She is a woman from another time
prisoned in a very dark world.
Leonor, the Bachillera is a love story that goes beyond social barriers. It takes the
reader to dramatic times and the fight for women rights before the appearance of the
suffragists, when women had to claim for their right to something very simple: to
read, to learn and to express their opinion.
Biography
Roser Amills (Algaida, Mallorca, 1974), mother of two boys, lives and works in Barcelona. Very
active in social networks, she combines writing and journalism on & offline. She writes a blog
in La Vanguardia digital edition and is a regular contributor to Catalunya Radio and Onda Vasca,
RNE Radio 4, as well as The RTVE and 25TV. This is her second novel.
VIEW FIRST CHAPTER
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2
Fernando Aramburu
Patria (Fatherland)
Tusquets Editores, 2016
SPAIN
Rights holder: Tusquets Editores
NOVEL
Agent: Alejandra Segrelles
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
“The definitive novel about the Basque Country, a courageous, emotionally charged
fiction that will leave no reader unmoved.”
The day when Bittori hears about ETA’s official communiqué, she pledges before the
grave of her husband, an ETA victim, that she will return to their village home and
find out whether over time people has come to regret the way they once persecuted
them. She undermines the phony peace in the community and forces her children,
now in their forties and reluctant to trigger resentment, to become involved, as well
as her once close friend, Miren, mother of an ETA activist in prison suspected of
collaborating in her husband’s assassination, and her family. The lives of Bittori and
Miren’s families, with their grief and their beliefs, their mean moves and generous
gestures, reveal how difficult it is to overcome the old traumas, how impossible it is
to forget, and how necessary it is to forgive and achieve reconciliation in a community
fractured by fanaticism and political violence.
Biography
Fernando Aramburu (San Sebastián, 1959) has a degree in Spanish Language and Literature
from the University of Zaragoza, and currently lives in Germany. Considered one of the most
outstanding writers in the Spanish language, his literary work has won the Ramón Gómez de la
Serna Prize 1997, the Euskadi Prize 2001 and, for his short story collection Los peces de la amargura
(Tusquets, 2006), the XI Mario Vargas Llosa NH Prize, the Dulce Chacón Prize, and the Prize of
the Spanish Royal Academy 2008. The movie Bajo las estrellas based on his novel El trompetista del
utopía was awarded a Goya Prize in 2008 for best adapted screenplay by the Spanish Academy of
Cinema. Among his most recent novels, Años lentos (Tusquets, 2012) won the Tusquets Editores
Prize for Novel 2011 and was named Book of the Year 2012 by the Booksellers of Madrid, while
Ávidas pretensiones won the Biblioteca Breve Prize 2014.
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Roberto Bolaño
El espíritu de la ciencia ficción (The Spirit of Science Fiction)
Alfaguara, 2016
CHILE
Rights holder: The Wylie Agency
FICTION
Agent: Ekin Oklap
Synopsis
Aspiring young Chilean writers Remo and Jan arrive in Mexico City eager to establish
themselves on the literary scene. Together they launch an investigation into the
dramatic surge in local poetry magazines, while Remo begins a romance that ends
in the city’s secret system of underground public baths. Interspersed are two other
narratives. The first consists of Jan’s anxious letters to American science fiction writers
—among them Ursula K. Le Guin, Robert Silverberg, and James Tiptree, Jr. The second
is a meandering interview with an unnamed writer, possibly Jan, as he tries to explain
to a journalist the plot of his new, prizewinning novel and the ‘unknown university’
at its core. Employing a range of genres, from epistolary novel to science fiction to
satire, El espíritu de la ciencia ficción is a masterpiece reminiscent of Los detectives salvajes
in scope and ambition.
Foreign rights sold: Brazil (Companhia das Letras), Hungary (Jelenkor), Italy (Adelphi), Korea
(Open Books), Portugal (Quetzal), UK (Picador), US (Penguin Press).
Biography
Roberto Bolaño was born in Santiago, Chile, in 1953. He grew up in Chile and Mexico City, where
he was a founder of the Infrarealist poetry movement. His first full-length novel, Los detectives
salvajes (The Savage Detectives), received the Premio Herralde when it appeared in 1998 and the
Premio Rómulo Gallegos in 1999. Bolaño died in Blanes, Spain, at the age of 50. His novel 2666
won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction in 2009.
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Mar Bosch Oliveras
Les generacions espontànies (Spontaneous Generations)
Edicions del Periscopi, 2016
CATALAN
Rights holder: Cristina Mora Literary & Film Agency
FICTION
Agent: Cristina Mora
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
Eva is about to have her first interview after a long time without opportunities. As she
has decided that the job will be hers, she goes over her CV, full of short and radically
heterodox experiences, tracing a map of her personality: refractory obstinate and with
a very inquisitive vision of the world, turning a formal interview into a flowing and
uncomplicated conversation.
With a daring and accurate stile, Mar Bosch offers a text in which reality and imagination
become accomplices. Spontaneous Generations is an hilarious novel about survival, an
unusual and playful story, extendible to a desperately flexible generation, that is also
a commandment strategy to linger while we chase the idea of a conventional life.
«A small masterpiece.» –El Mundo
«Bosch proves that she is a novelist without limits.» –Diari ARA
«With a mastery very rarely reached.» –Bearn Magazine
Biography
Mar Bosch Oliveras (Girona, 1981) has a degree in Philosophy and Cultural Journalism. Her first
novel, Bedlam, won the Just M. Casero Award.
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Jesús Cañadas
Las tres muertes de Fermín Salvochea (Three Times Death to Fermín Salvochea)
Roca Editorial, 2017
SPAIN
Rights holder: UnderCover Literary Agents
LITERARY FICTION
Agent: Alexander Dobler
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
Three suburban children chasing the monsters of an atmospheric turn of the century
Cádiz, together with some of the world’s most famous demon hunters of their time.
A literary fairytale. Admission only for adults.
1907: Four suburban children are chasing the monsters of an atmospheric turn of the
century Cádiz, together with some of the world’s most famous vampire hunters of their
time. It all started back in 1873 when the new mayor of the city, Fermín Salvochea, a
famously beloved figure in the Spanish Anarchist movement, started hunting down
some of the sources of evil in his city. In the novel, his assistant will be the father of
one of our small protagonists, a barber with good looks but also very prone to drinking
and whoring around. But Juaíco conserves a pure heart and this is what Salvochea needs
for his fight. However, when Salvochea dies in 1907, his dead body disappears and his
former assistant completely loses control, so now the children have to take over: But
some of their demons are also terribly real, like the head of the orphanage where the
two girls are mistreated and harshly punished, for crimes they never committed. Now,
even their secret hiding place, the rabbit hole, might not be able to protect them...
Biography
Jesús Cañadas was born in 1980 in Cádiz, Spain. His short stories have become famous in genre
magazines as Asimov, Miasma and Aurora and formed part of the anthologies Visiones 2008, The
Best of Spanish Steampunk (hence the connection to Félix Palma), Charco Negro and Presencia
Humana. In 2011, he published his first novel that was shortlisted for the Scifiworld Award in
2011. The Penguin Random House Group spotted him in 2013, publishing his second novel Los
nombres muertos, later shortlisted for the Celsius Award of Genre Fiction. Since then, he has been
labelled as one of the most outstanding genre writers in Spain. In 2015, Valdemar published his
horror novel Pronto será de noche, a tribute to his masters Julio Cortázar and Stephen King. He
currently lives in Berlin where he combines his literary work with his work for Spanish TV and
Movie Producers.
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Chusita Fashion Fever
Esto no es un libro de sexo
(This is not a Sex Book)
Molino, 2016
SPAIN
Rights holder: RBA Foreign Rights
YA NON-FICTION
Agent: Ariadna Quintero and Gerard Espelt
Contact: [email protected] | [email protected]
Synopsis
**Listed as one of the International Hot Properties by Publisher’s Weekly**
It deals with everything about sex.
A very cool design plenty of graphic illustrations and comic strips.
Open minded and inclusive (Heterosexuality, Homosexuality…).
Very connected to reality (New technologies, written in slang…).
Shatters stereotypes and encourages correct sexual education.
The style is fresh and the language is the one used by teenage boys and girls.
Plenty of different sections: false myths, slang, practical explanations, tests, Q&A,
and much more.
«Guiding a generation of inexperienced would-be love-makers.» —The Times
«An illustrated sex guide for teenagers to arm them with the knowledge they need
once they become sexually active.» —Daily Mail
«Maybe we all need a big sister like Chusita to share our sexual concerns.» —La
Vanguardia
Foreign rights sold: US (Macmillan), UK (Head of Zeus), Germany (CBJ), Italy (Giunti), Czech
Republic (Euromedia), The Netherlands (Ploegsma).
Biography
Chusita is a Spanish Vlogger who lives in Madrid. “ChusitaFashionFever” is her main channel,
with more than 250.000 subscribers, where she uploads vlogs covering a variety of topics. She
began to upload videos in 2008 and hasn’t stop creating content since then. Apart from being
a youtuber she has also started her musical career launching the album Nos vemos en el infierno.
This is not a Sex Book is her first book.
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Julio Fajardo
Asamblea ordinaria (General Assembly)
Libros del Asteroide, 2016
SPAIN
Rights holder: Silvia Bastos Agencia Literaria
LITERARY FICTION
Agent: Pau Centellas
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
A couple from Madrid starts suffering the consequences of unemployment and
precariousness. When it comes to dealing with these problems and setting new
goals for themselves, he decides to enroll in an emerging political party and she
realizes they no longer share the same priorities. An employee in a modern company
from Barcelona tries to reconcile the stirring fascination he feels towards his boss
with the series of abusive misdeeds inflicted upon the company’s staff. A young
unqualified worker loses his job and, in order to avoid paying rent moves in with his
septuagenarian aunt. Generational conflicts arise and, at the same time, so does a new
type of communication and understanding.
Narrated with storytelling virtuosity, this novel is structured in three different
storylines told from the first, second and third persons, respectively, and provides us
with characters to whom it is impossible not to relate.
Biography
Julio Fajardo Herrero (Tenerife, 1979) lives in Barcelona and works as an editor and translator.
He is the author of the novels Los principios activos (2008) and Asamblea ordinaria (2016). After
working in political communication and collaborating in different election campaigns, today he
spends his days surrounded by his and others’ books, as almost always.
VIEW FIRST CHAPTER
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Paulina Flores
Qué vergüenza (How Embarrasing)
Seix Barral, 2016
CHILE
Rights holder: Planeta LATAM Agency
NARRATIVE FICTION
Agent: Gabriel Nieto
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
Awarded with the Roberto Bolaño Short Story Prize and the Arts Critics Circle
Literature Prize.
An amazing discovery of a new Chilean literature’s voice.
With these nine short stories, her first book, Paulina Flores delivers with overwhelming
sincerity, an appalling vision of contemporary city life: women that live in public
housing buildings; men who, once having lost their jobs, reveal the fragile foundations
that hold their families together; young people working in libraries or fast food
restaurants and remember the day they committed a small theft, the reasons that led
them to a break-up or that instant when they permanently lost their innocence.
Characters who, seen through the author’s eyes, through her strange mix of harshness
and tenderness, of transparency and obscurity, feel as though we’ve known them all
our lives. Her stories expand and operate as a whole, adhering to our skin. That’s
where Paulina Flores observes the world, and with admirable maturity, she weaves a
dazzling literary universe.
«A brilliant book which retrieves the whimsical rhythm of misencounter and in which
the lost time is less important than the desire to be shared.» -Alejandro Zambra
Foreign rights sold: Netherlands (Atlas Contact)
Biography
Paulina Flores was born in Chile in 1988 and studied Literature at Chile’s National University.
In 2014 she received the Roberto Bolaño Short Story Award for her short story What An
Embarrassment, which later became the title of her first book, awarded by the Art Critcs Circle
as best novel author. She is working on her next book, a novel that will be published in 2018
happening in Punta Arenas, the Chilean Patagonia.
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Antonio García Ángel
Declive (Decay)
Literatura Random House, 2016
COLOMBIA
Rights holder: MB Agencia Literaria
LITERARY FICTION
Agent: Txell Torrent
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
Another day. It’s five p.m. and the alarm clock comes to life. Jorge has no time to waste:
his shift at the call centre begins at six and, aside from getting ready, he must make his
way to Transmilenio station and catch a bus, always an unpredictable undertaking. So he
shakes off his slumbers, bathes, gets dressed, but just as he is about to finish something
unexpected occurs: his shoe doesn’t fit. He tries the other one on, the outcome is the
same. He looks at his shoes, then his feet, and is baffled: the shoes are the ones he was
wearing before his siesta and his feet don’t look swollen. Puzzled and now in something
of a hurry, he grabs another pair but to no avail: they don’t fit. His feet, so it would seem,
have grown. With no time for further attempts, Jorge dashes out with his shoes hanging
half off and, unsettled and brooding, breaks into a sprint to the bus station. He has no
way of knowing that this minor, puzzling anomaly is the first symptom of his decay.
«Undoubtedly, one of this year’s finest novels. The image of a city that shows no
mercy, unrelenting and cruel, is one of the novel’s great achievements, a portrait of
Bogota that transports the reader elsewhere, to Kafka perhaps, describing the ordeals
of Joseph K, or to Rulfo in search of Susana San Juan.» -Santiago Gamboa, El País
Biography
Antonio García Ángel (Cali – Colombia, 1972) earned a degree in Literature and another in
Communications, both in the Javeriana University in Bogota. In 2001 he published his first
novel, Su casa es mi casa (Planeta; La otra orilla, 2008). In 2004, the Rolex company selected him
for The Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, which allowed him to study for a year with
mentor Mario Vargas Llosa. In 2006 he published his second novel, Recursos Humanos (Lengua
de Trapo). In 2007 he was chosen as one of the 39 writers under 39 who best represent Latin
America in the Bogota World Capital of the Book. He has published a book of short stories
Animales domésticos (Norma, 2010). He also has participated in several anthologies and written
for newspapers and magazines. Currently, he is a university professor and a columnist for the
publication SoHo.
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Inés Garland
Una vida más verdadera (A Truer Life)
Alfaguara, 2017
ARGENTINA
Rights holder: Agencia Literaria CBQ
FICTION
Agent: Claudia Bernaldo de Quirós
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
P shows up in the life of the story’s female protagonist after nearly forty years. The
love they shared in their teens resurfaces with the force of the soul’s deepest truths.
But to fall in love at fifteen is not the same as falling in love after a lifetime.
They have only one day a week to meet, only one day to escape social demands and the
commonplaces of love. A Truer Life is the story of the questions that arise from lifechanging encounters.
A woman who studies the man she loves also studies herself, looks at their lives and
the shapes it took for each one of them, and she wonders.
Biography
Winner of the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis 2014 for Piedra, papel o tijera (Stone, paper or
scissors).
Argentina, 1960. Inés Garland works freelance and coordinates creative writing workshops. A
jury from the National Arts’ Fund formed by Liliana Heker, Ana María Shua y Vicente Batista
awarded her book Una Reina Perfecta in 2005. Several of the short stories in the book received
Latin-american awards and the short story A Perfect Queen has been translated to English for the
National Welsh Review. Her novel Piedra, papel o tijera was elected Best Novel of the Year by Alija
(Children’s and Young people’s Literature Association). It has been translated to German as Wei
ein unsichtbares Band.
Awards:
Winner of the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis 2014 for Piedra, papel o tijera, which is the most
important prize for young adult literature in Germany (besides, Inés Garland is the first LatinAmerican writer in winning this prize).
Her short stories’ book Cerca de una ausencia was awarded the second prize by the Fondo Nacional
de las Artes 2005 (published under the title of Una Reina Perfecta).
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Verónica Gerber
Conjunto vacío (Empty Set)
Almadía, 2015
MEXICO
Rights holder: Indent Literary Agency
LITERARY FICTION
Agent: Paula Canal
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
“Solitude is invisible, we go through it without knowing, without realizing. At least
that is the kind of solitude I’m talking about. It’s a sort of empty set that take over our
bodies, our speech, and makes us unintelligible.”
Conjunto vacío tells the story of Verónica, the daughter of Argentine expats who live
in Mexico City. Verónica must return to her mother’s old apartment, the place where
she lived before she suddenly disappeared a few years ago. It’s also a story of love and
loss in which a breakup results in a journey to uncover family roots. Whenever words
aren’t enough, they stutter, the decompose and only drawings, abstractions and
sketches will do. This novel invents its own language. From the written word to visual
representations, the author builds a story filled with holes that open up inside other
holes. Written in a lucid and melancholy tone, Conjunto vacío is a brilliant and honest
début that invites the reader into a unique fictional universe that confirms Gerber is one
of the most interesting voices in contemporary Mexican literature.
«Verónica Gerber writes with bright intimacy; her novel is witty, brilliant, moving and
deeply original. Reading it made me feel like the world has been healed.» –Francisco
Goldman
Foreign rights sold: Argentina (Sigilo), Spain (Pepitas de Calabaza), US (Coffee House Press).
Biography
Verónica Gerber Bicecci is a visual artist who writes. She has published the books: Mudanza
(Moving Out) (2010, Ed. Auieo–Taller Ditoria) and Conjunto vacío (Empty Set) (2015, Ed. Almadía).
Her work has been shown at Museo de la Ciudad de México, Casa Vecina, Museo Experimental
el Eco, Centro Cultural de España, and Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC),
among others. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the ENPEG, La Esmeralda
and a master’s in art history from the UNAM. She is an editor at the cooperative Tumbona
Ediciones; her essays, articles and reviews have been featured in magazines like Granta, Letras
Libres, Make and Tierra Adentro. In November 2013, she received the III Aura Estrada International
Literature Award.
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Montero Glez
El carmín y la sangre (The Lipstick and the Blood)
Algaida Editores, 2016
SPAIN
Rights holder: Bookbank Literary Agency
HISTORICAL THRILLER
Agent: Alicia González Sterling
Contact: alicia@bookbank
Synopsis
Winner of the prestigious Ateneo de Sevilla award 2016
A Novel about love, war and espionage with Ian Fleming as the main character.
It is based on a true story. Ian Fleming, its main character, worked for the British spy
service, before being famous with the James Bond saga.
The book describes Ian Fleming´s mission during the Second World War, coordinating
the British Intelligence among Gibraltar, Tanger and Lisbon in order to avoid the
bombing of Gibraltar and the damage that the German submarines were infringing
the British supply fleets.
In Gibraltar he meets the flamenco dancer Juana la Petenera and falls in love with her.
But Juana is more than it seems, turning out to be an associate to the Black Prince, a
dangerous Italian spy.
Biography
Montero Glez’s real name is Roberto Montero González. He is considered by the literary critic as
one of the authors with more personality and literary genius of the last years in Spain.
In 2008 Montero Glez won the Azorín Award with his work Pólvora Negra. He has recently won
the VIII Premio Logroño for his novel Talco y Bronce. He is also the author of Pistola y Cuchillo and
Sed de Champán among other titles. Some of his titles have been translated into other languages.
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Arthur Gunn
El club de los mejores (The Best Club)
Ediciones B, 2016
SPAIN
Rights holder: Oh!Books Agencia Literaria
THRILLER
Agent: Juanjo Boya
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
A thriller about the children we once were and the secrets that marked us. An
addictive novel that has been compared to Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River.
It’s midnight and Walter, a successful engineer, hears a knock on his front door. It’s
Cormac, an old friend who needs his help: someone has kidnapped his wife and is
threatening to kill her if Cormac doesn’t pay up $1 million within two hours. Walter
tries to help Cormac, but something completely unexpected happens which turns his
life upside down. From that night on, Walter becomes enmeshed in a game of trickery,
surprise and threats, the key to which could lie in something that happened a long time
ago, when they were eight years old and lived in a small town in Minnesota. Back then
they had a club –The Best Club– and they made promises that were never to be broken...
Carmen Romero, Spanish authors’ editor in Ediciones B said: «There are some
manuscripts –not many– that absorb you so much that you forget you’re working, and
you simply enjoy the pleasure of letting yourself be drawn into a great story. That’s
the case with Arthur Gunn’s The Best Club, a superb thriller filled with surprises and
unforeseen events. Its skilfully-woven plot drags you along, page after page, until you
reach the completely unexpected ending.»
Biography
Sociologist Claudio Cerdán (Spain, 1981) is a rising voice in Spanish fiction. Arthur Gunn is his
pseudonym for his American-inspired thrillers. In 2015 his novel Un mundo peor won the Prize
Tenerife Negro to the Best Noir Novel of the year. Previously in 2012 El país de los ciegos had
also won the Novel Prize for the Best Noir Novel, competing against Carlos Salem and Víctor
del Árbol. Two of his recent thrillers, La revolución secreta (Alrevés Editores, 2014) and Sangre
fría (Dolmen, 2016) have been published in Latin America by Ediciones B. His novel The House
of Chocolate (2012) was translated into French, and a French journalist wrote: «The author is
young, unknown and first-class. He deserves to be placed, immediately, among the geniuses
of contemporary European literature. His novel captivates the reader, it is well-written, fun,
unusual, amazing and is never boring: it is a small miracle of fluidity.» Since 2015 Claudio lives
in Sweden with his family.
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14
Toni Hill
Los ángeles de hielo (The Ice Angels)
Grijalbo, 2016
SPAIN
Rights holder: The Ella Sher Literary Agency
PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER
Agent: Ella Sher
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
Toni Hill continues to demonstrate his great narrative pulse and masterful ability to
create atmosphere in this fascinating literary best seller, full of unforgettable characters.
An ambitious novel of psychological intrigue with Gothic overtones, set in vibrant
early twentieth century Barcelona. “In this story, we will penetrate the darkest
recesses of the human soul, into the atrocities that beings tormented by vengeance
and hatred can commit. Both the living and the dead.”
Barcelona 1916. At twenty-seven years old, Frederic Mayol has left his comfortable life
in Vienna behind and endured the trauma of the war that continues to ravage Europe.
Psychiatrist and follower of psychoanalytic theories, he faces a future in a sanatorium
located in a quiet fishing village near Barcelona, the perfect place to overcome the
horrors he has confronted. But the clinic and its surroundings don’t turn out to be
as idyllic as he thought. The shadows of a sinister past hover over the angels that
adorn the front of the building, as if to relive the events that took place in the house
seven years earlier. The place used to be a prestigious boarding school for girls from
good families, which closed its doors after a tragic fire. Trapped between the desire to
unravel the mystery that lurks within the walls of the mansion and his love for Blanca,
a former student at the school, Frederic must face a perverse story of obsession and
revenge until he reaches a revelation as surprising as it is heartbreaking. The truth,
although necessary, is not always a liberation; sometimes it can imprison you further.
Biography
Toni Hill (Barcelona, 1966) holds a degree in psychology. He works in
publishing and as a literary translator for more than ten years. He translated David Sedaris,
Jonathan Safran Foer, Glenway Wescott, Rosie Alison, Peter May, Rabih Alameddine and A.
L. Kennedy. His Inspector Héctor Salgado trilogy has been published in more than twenty
countries to critical and commercial success: The Summer of Dead Toys (2011), The Good Suicides
(2012) and The Hiroshima Lovers (2014).
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15
Nuria Labari
Cosas que brillan cuando están rotas (Things that Shine when they are Broken)
Círculo de Tiza, 2016
SPAIN
Rights holder: SalmaiaLit
LITERARY UP-MARKET FICTION
Agent: Amaiur Fernández and Bernat Fiol
Contact: [email protected] | [email protected]
Synopsis
“Everything has exploded around us. Not only the trains. Everything has blown up. It has
broken the meaning of events and also the meaning of our lives, if they ever had one”.
Madrid, March 11th 2004, 7.38 am. Ten explosions occur aboard four commuter trains.
The result, 192 people killed and 2,000 injured. The deadliest terrorist attack in Europe
in the last decades. Eva, the protagonist, is a reporter who feels that everything around
her is falling apart. She has to tell the tragedy of the people who were on the trains
when the bombs exploded, while at the same time she is going through the wreck of
her marriage and faces the painful certainty of how much she has distanced herself
from her teenage daughter. Eric, the husband, and the daughter Clara, a 17-year-old
who faces the common insecurities of a teenage girl, are the other two protagonists of
the novel. Eric pours his frustration through e-mails that he sends to Eva from Berlin,
where he has fled with Clara to try to build up his relationship with her and clarify his
ideas. The three of them have become strangers to each other and at the same time
they feel some kind of nostalgia for an idealized past where things were good.
Things that Shine when they are Broken talks about rupture, loss, mourning, bereavement,
about those times when we pick up the scattered pieces of our lives to rebuild something
different with them. It deals with the lack of compassion, the estrangement from
others, even our loved ones, in a present time that leads us to mistake happiness with
numbers and belongings. A novel that portrays the crisis of a shattered society.
«Nuria Labari is so sharp in her observations about human behavior that sometimes
you feel that you are attending a class on emotional anatomy.» -Rosa Montero
Biography
Nuria Labari (Santander, Spain, 1979) graduated in Political Science at the University of the
Basque Country and also in International Relations at the Ortega y Gasset Institute. She debuted
in 2009 with the short story collection Los borrachos de mi vida (The Drunks in My Life), which
was awarded the VII Premio de Narrativa de Caja de Madrid and was acclaimed by the specialized
press. Cosas que brillan cuando están rotas is her first novel. She worked in elmundo.es as a
journalist for four years, and later as an editor in the magazine Marie Claire. She is currently the
director of digital strategy at Megamedia.
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Marcelo Leonart
El libro rojo de la Historia de Chile (The Red Book of the History of Chile)
Tajamar Editores, 2016
CHILE
Rights holder: Ampi Margini Literary Agency
LITERARY FICTION
Agent: Vito D’Onghia
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
A finalist in the ‘Premio Herralde de Novela 2015’ of Editorial Anagrama, The Red Book of
the History of Chile narrates of a country whose before‐and‐after pivotal event remains the
September 11, 1973 coup d’etat that brought down the government of Salvador Allende.
A country whose social narrative has traditionally been affected by events happening in
another, very far away country: Holy Mother Russia. The recent past, the present and
the near future of Chile are traversed through five chronologically distinct sections that
swing wildly between lyricism and violent reality.
In a 1976 icy, white Moscow, a young Chilean couple in exile take leave from their
dreams of ever returning while recalling passages from Checkov’s The Seagull, and
the glorious feat of Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman to have flown in space. In
the years before the coup, a factory worker confident in the bright future awaiting the
Chilean working class has premonitory nightmares populated by Russian characters.
The ghost of Lenin hovers over a National Stadium filled with political prisoners but
hurriedly cleared to make space for the famous World Cup qualification match where
Chile kicks off the ball against a Soviet Union team which refused to attend in protest.
The grandson of a Cossack captain in his senile decline evokes one of his moments of
glory as an exterminator of communist conspirators, exultant in victory before the
bleeding widow of his worst enemy. In Leonart’s fifth novel victims and perpetrators,
poetical descriptions and brutal images of violence, the international political context
and the psychological motivations of a group of young idealists, all converge in a
historical work of sensual bluntness.
Biography
Marcelo Leonart was born in Santiago de Chile in 1970. He is a writer, playwright and a stage
director. In 1998 his story Maribel bajo el brazo won the Premio Juan Rulfo organized by Radio France
International. He has published the short story volumes Mujer desnuda fumando en la ventana
(Planeta, 1999) and La educación (Tajamar, 2012, Premio Consejo Nacional del Libro y la Lectura)
and the novels Fotos de Laura (2012, Premio Revista de Libros, El Mercurio), La Patria (Tajamar,
2012), Lacra (2013, Premio Consejo Nacional del Libro y la Lectura) and Pascua (Tajamar, 2015).
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17
Joan-Lluís Lluís
El navegant (The Navigator)
Proa/Grup 62, 2017
CATALAN
Rights holder: Asterisc Agents
LITERARY, ADVENTURES
Agent: Natàlia Berenguer Gamell
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
Among the most classic adventure genre and the literary genre, El navegant offers the
particular trip of Assiscle Xatot, a young Catalan with a peculiar and unique talent,
which will take him from Perpignan to distant lands. Before, however, he will spend
a long time in Paris where he will live with Bonnefin brothers and will study at the
Institute of Oriental Languages until the revolution of the Paris Commune and the
siege of the city will make him discover hunger. But hardships have only begun and
only when he meets the Aboriginal tribes who remain fascinated by the Catalan
traditional stories of Patufet, Assicle Xatot will not be able to find peace of mind. After
all, with patience and some good will an unlucky guy like him can get rich. Far from
his land and his beloved Josefa, he asks and discovers why it is good to be gifted which
such a special talent as his.
Biography
Joan-Lluís Lluís (Perpignan, 1963) is a writer and a journalist. He studied Art History at
Montpelier University. He has written some books of nonfiction, such as Conversa amb el meu
gos sobre França i els francesos, winner of the Joan Coromines Award. He has mostly published
novels, however, often with a personal narrative style that singles him out from other writers
of his generation. Among others, he has published the books Els ulls de sorra (1993), Vagons
robats (1996), El crim de l’escriptor cansat (2000) and El dia de l’ós, awarded the Joan Crexells Prize
in 2005. In recent years, he has published Aiguafang, Crítica Serra d’Or Award in 2009; Xocolata
desfeta (2009), an experimental work of narrative; and the novel Cròniques d’un déu coix, winner
of the Lletra d’Or 2014. He frequently writes Op-Ed pieces for several publications.
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Lola López Mondéjar
Cada noche, cada noche (Each and Every Night)
Siruela, 2016
SPAIN
Rights holder: A.C.E.R. Agencia Literaria
NARRATIVE
Agent: Fátima Amechqar Cabezas
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
Dolores Schiller has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, but before opting for an
assisted suicide she has a secret to tell; when she turned twenty, her father presented
her with diaries written by her mother, who died during childbirth. On comparing the
novel ‘Lolita’ with these diaries, she suspects her mother is the very same girl as the
one in the text. Following this assumption, she begins an investigation which will lead
her as far as Switzerland, to meet the novel’s male protagonist, Humbert himself.
The two stories (diaries) of mother and daughter run parallel throughout the novel:
one characterized by an imposed sexuality, the other dominated by a lack of sexual
desire.
The relationships with illness and death, friendship and abandonment, critique and
art, among others, become the basis of an intense and engaging text.
Biography
Psychologist, psychoanalyst and writer, Lola López Mondéjar has had several books published
among which an entertaining and erotic novel entitled Lenguas Vivas (Living Tongues) and two
collections of short stories, El pensamiento de los peces and Lazos de Sangre (Páginas de Espuma).
Her novel Mi amor desgraciado (My Ill-fated Love) was shortlisted for Torrente Ballester Narrative
Prize 2009.
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19
Pablo Martín Sánchez
Tuyo es el mañana (Tomorrow is yours)
Acantilado, 2012
SPAIN
NOVEL
Rights holder: Quaderns Crema
Agent: Anna Muñoz
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
“You’re going to be born today. You shouldn’t but you’re going to. You shouldn’t
because it’s hell out there. There are demonstrations day in, day out. People are
talking about elections. About attacks. About amnesties. And you’re just fine in your
cave. So nice and warm. So weightless. […] Life gives you so much, people say. But
the first thing it gives you is a couple of slaps on the bum. […] The frequency of the
contractions suggests that it’s nearly time for you to poke your head out into the world.
A world in which a lot of things are going to happen today. Good things and bad things.
In Congo, they’re going to kill the president, Marien Ngouabi. There’s going to be a
general strike in Italy. In Spain, the Government Gazette is going to announce a new
pardon. But the story that will mark your life is going to happen much closer to home,
a few kilometres from here […] You can hear the bells of a nearby church. You can feel
a new contraction. You’re going to be born today. You shouldn’t but you’re going to.”
Foreign rights sold: France (La Contre Allée Éditions).
Biography
Pablo Martín Sánchez (near Reus, 1977) has a higher degree in Drama, a degree in Theory of
Literature and Comparative Literature, and a master’s degree in Humanities. He has worked
in the publishing industry as a reader, copyeditor, translator and bookseller. A founder of the
magazine Verbigracia, he is also a member of the editorial committee of the digital review La
Siega and a regular columnist for Rinconete (Centro Virtual Cervantes – Cervantes Institute
Virtual Centre). He is presently completing a PhD in Lille (France) with a thesis on Oulipo and
hypertext. He is a member of the Collège de Pataphysique and of the Altíssimo Instituto de
Estudios Pataphysicos de La Candelaria (La Candelaria Supreme Institute of Pataphysics). He
made his literary debut with the novel The Anarchist who Bore my Name, winner of the award El
Mundo’s Best Literary Debut.
His previous novel, The Anarchist who Bore my Name, was sold to USA (Deep Vellum).
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20
Laura Mavor
No eres lo que busco (You’re not what I’m Looking for)
Plaza & Janés, 2017
SPAIN
Rights holder: Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial
THRILLER, COMMERCIAL FICTION
Agent: María Reina De la Puebla
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
When the most popular online dating app of the moment turns into the vehicle for
a murderer to commit a series of horrible crimes in a peaceful vacation spot on the
coast of Castellón, Inspector Miranda Vega must find the killer before the panic
spreads.
The number-one app for finding your perfect partner can help you finally meet the
love you’ve been searching for... Or it could become your worst nightmare.
In a small city on the coast of Castellón, where nothing ever happens, a middle-aged
writer gets together with a young man through Finder, the most popular cell phone
dating app on the market. When she arrives at the man’s house, she finds him dead.
Lieutenant Miranda Vega, an experienced member of the civil guard with a caustic
sense of humor, and her new partner, Sergeant Christian Ballesteros, a naive rookie
with a good heart, will head up the investigation of the young man’s murder, revealing
a sordid world of mafia interests, religious fundamentalism and sexual perversion in
what—up until then—had been a calm tourist destination.
Precise, razor-sharp and hypnotic prose; original and charismatic characters; a highly
topical subject; an addictive mystery; a novel that’s hard to put down.
Biography
A historian by profession, and a lover of archeology, art and literature, Laura Mavor was born in
Minnesota to an American father and a Spanish mother. She specialized in the study of classic
noir authors such as Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett.
Finally, she decided to write her first novel, a perfectly structured detective thriller that’s a
lightning-fast read. Laura Mavor is the pseudonym of a Spanish criminologist who specializes
in the study of crimes committed through new technologies and mobile phone applications. She
has poured all her knowledge of the subject into You’re not what I’m Looking for, her first novel.
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Juan José Millás
Desde la sombra (From the Shadows)
Seix Barral, 2016
SPAIN
Rights holder: Casanovas & Lynch Agencia Literaria
NOVEL
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
A full-grown man hides in a closet, gets stuck in a stranger’s home, and passes his
time talking to an imagined, invisible TV talk show list. How will he push himself
into the real world again? 40 page English sample by Margaret Jull Costa.
The day Damián Lobo loses his job, he obsessively imagines himself being interviewed
as a celebrity on TV, in denial of his solitude and his habit of talking to himself. He
commits a petty theft at an antique market, which then leads him to hide inside an
old gigantic wooden closet which he can’t get out of until it’s sold and transported to
the idyllic home of an apparently happy husband and wife and their Internet-addicted
teenage daughter. Once the movers leave the closet in the place the couple specified
and with no one watching or in the house, Damián uses his carpenter skills to carve out
a living space between this closet which was placed in front of a built-in closet. From
this space and this shadow, he convinces himself he will be of more use inside the
house, living with them and without them ever realizing it. Every morning, once the
coast is clear, he makes their beds, cleans their washroom, their dishes, and becomes
their “invisible butler”. Who in the family will find out first and how? Will he save the
day and be taken away by the police? Would he make the better husband?
Foreign rights sold: Italy (Einaudi), Portugal (Planeta), Greece (Psichogios), Poland (Czarna Owca).
Biography
Juan José Millás is considered one of the most important voices in contemporary Spanish
literature, and is a prolific bestselling novelist. He is the winner of the Premio Nadal, the Premio
Nacional and the Premio Planeta. Some of his novels include El mundo, La soledad era esto, El
desorden de tu nombre, Dos mujeres en Praga, Laura y Julio, and La mujer loca. As a journalist, he is a
regular contributor to El País, winning awards such as the Mariano de Cavia, Fundación Germán
Sánchez Ruipérez, Atlántida and the Francisco Cerecedo. Reading Juan José Millás is having a
magnifying glass pushed through your ear, your mind read, reread, aroused. With hands like
magic wands, he turns the most trivial into an abyss, any daily fact into a fantastic event,
repressed desires into delirious celebrations sung out loud. He is our modern day Spanish Kafka,
with his work studied in high schools and universities around the world.
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Rosa Montero
La carne (The Flesh)
Alfaguara, 2016
SPAIN
Rights holder: Agencia Literaria Carmen Balcells
NOVEL
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
A dangerous and appealing literary meditation about the body and desire at an
adult age.
Single and childless, Soledad has turned sixty, which she calls “the age of the dogs”.
But in her case, what many would consider a normal life, or even a chosen one, is
symptomatic of a personal anomaly that she spends days and nights torturing
herself about. Fate hasn’t been good to her either: her sister, Dolores, is confined
to a psychiatric hospital, and her lover, Mario, has returned to an apparently happy
marriage with his wife. Her job is the only thing Soledad can cling to: the curatorship
of a peculiar catalogue of outcast writers that she’s preparing for an exhibition. And
something undeniable since she was a girl: bodily desire, and the need to feel like a
lover woman. Adam, a gigolo of Russian origin, will come into her life to satisfy that
desire, leading to a dangerous relationship between him, with his dark past, and her, a
woman obsessed with madness and age spots, but determined to pull out all the stops
one last time.
La carne is a physical novel, written by and for the body. Montero plays with psychology
to show us, through agile, vivid, crystal-clear writing, how the body can go from being
a shameful prison to an authentic engine for our desire to keep on living.
Biography
Rosa Montero studied journalism and psychology at the Complutense University of Madrid while
also participating in independent theatre groups. She initiated her career in journalism working
for various media (Arriba, Hermano Lobo, Posible and Fotogramas, among others). As of 1977 she
has contributed exclusively to El País, working as editor-in-chief of the Sunday supplement for
two years. In 1978 she was awarded the Premio Manuel del Arco de Entrevistas; in 1980, the
Premio Nacional de Periodismo; and in 2005 the Premio Rodríguez Santamaría de Periodismo
in recognition of her entire professional career. She has written a number of works of fiction,
which have also earned her numerous prizes and been translated into more than 20 languages.
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Francisco Narla
Dónde aúllan las colinas (Where the Hills Howl)
Editorial Planeta, 2016
SPAIN
Rights holder: Agencia Literaria Albardonedo
HISTORICAL FICTION
Agent: Déborah Albardonedo Martínez
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
A historic novel full of adventure and strain which deepens on the ancestral fight
between man and raw nature. An unforgettable reading.
Hispania, the civil war is over. Rome belongs to one man hands: Julius Caesar’s. But
his ambition knows no limits and there is a place among the northern hills where a
hidden secret will grant him the power that he strives after. And there, to the ancestral
Gallaecia, he’ll send a selected group of legionaries that, pretending to be trappers will
kill the wolfs of those shivering mountains to gain the local tribes confidence and find
out where is the desired Caesar’s secret. Nevertheless, something will go quite wrong.
The last pregnant wolf is besieged. And the male will have no mercy with those men
that killed his partner. The big lone wolf will chase them to the very heart of Rome and
will break into pieces Caesar’s secret plans.
«Without doubt, one of the best ten novels of the last fifty years… worldwide.»
-Xurxo Fernández (Literary critic).
Biography
Francisco Narla (Spain, 1978) is a writer and airline captain. In spite of his youth, he has already
established an extensive literary career, and dared to try out many different genres. He has
published novels, stories, poetry, essays and practical books, the latter being closely linked to
his profession, but also his interests. A man with many facets, Francisco Narla is also a public
speaker. He has spoken in various forums such as universities and radio and television programs.
In 2009 he published his first novel, Los lobos del centeno, which, after its success in Spain, was
published in Mexico for sale throughout Latin America. Caja negra, his second work of fiction,
was released in November 2010. He has written also a large canon about applied aerodynamics.
Two years later the great success arrived on the name of Assur, his third novel, an historical
adventure which became not only a bestseller but also a longseller which still occupies a won
place on book stores’ shelves. And Ronin, 2014, set the foundation to make out of Narla one of
the most representative authors of Spain becoming as well a very sold novel. Donde aúllan las
colinas is his most personal work and has become a brilliant milestone in his career.
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Cristina Redondo
Aspereza (Roughness)
Editorial Catedral, 2016
SPAIN
Rights holder: Agencia Literaria Dos Passos
NARRATIVE FICTION
Agent: Alexandra Templier
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
Aspereza is the story of an endless escape, that of Olivia, who was banished from her
own home after revealing a secret that rewrites her family’s relationships. Olivia’s
childhood, ruled by the magnetism of an unstable mother, her bewildered siblings
who are unable to understand that which has not been explained to them, and a father
who diligently provides for them from afar, lead her to a series of rebellious episodes.
From her early trip to Los Angeles until her tours through Madrid’s shady nightlife of
the nineties, Aspereza follows the cracks of a woman who is used to living on the edge
and has seen it all. Now that she has become a well-known poet, comfortable and
well-off, Olivia travels to Canada to take care of Aline, the daughter of her dead lover.
On this trip she will have to face up to her ruins, her secrets and her most atavistic
fears: to recognise in herself the reflection of her mother’s frailty and grandeur.
In the author’s words: “Everything that surrounds Olivia is pure roughness. Roughness
her childhood under the shelter of an incomprehensible mother, roughness her
siblings, pride and puberty, roughness her father, caring and silent. Roughness her
relationships of love, of sex, of infinite sunrises, roughness her affections, roughness
her love to Jorge, to Aline, to her lover. Roughness even herself. Olivia remains the
centre of some cracks that keep moving and end up causing unbearable earthquakes.
She lives in a constant state of war but she doesn’t care, she seems at ease with any
kind of violence. I got literally obsessed with one sentence: <Fuck you Olivia> and a
setting that included a huge table full of silverware, food and things. Long before I got
to know who Olivia was, I was already the witness of a crucial event in her life: the
banishment from her own house.”
Biography
Born in 1978, Cristina Redondo has been working in cultural production and management since
2001. Since then she has been involved with music and theatre projects, always combining
her professional career with her writing. She was in charge of cultural activities at the CentroMuseo Artium of Vitoria-Gasteiz from 2006 until 2012. Currently, she is the production director
of Smedia, specialized in managing activities and programming for various theatres in Madrid.
As a writer, she is the author of four plays: La virtud de la torpeza (The Virtue of Clumsiness) and
Delirare, which were both premiered in Madrid in 2012 and 2014 under the direction of Fernando
Soto, and the unpublished Tigre Blanco (White Tiger) and La Viga (The Beam). She has written
various novels one of which was published in 2012 under the title Jambalaya, by Baile del Sol.
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Iván Repila
Prólogo para una guerra (Prelude to a War)
Seix Barral, 2017
SPAIN
Rights holder: Grupo Planeta
LITERARY FICTION
Agent: Pilar Lafuente
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
The prestigious architect Emil Zarco receives the most important commission of his
career: an ambitious urban project in which he will be able to implement his ideas
about the essence and destiny of humanity. He believes that as a species we must
survive through progress and by improving our abilities. In the same city, another
man is taking the opposite path: he is trying to disappear from a society where he
doesn’t fit in. He refuses to speak. The Mute seeks no company.
Emil and the Mute are both emotionally crippled: one by the loss of a child and the
other by an inability to have one. The city is witness and setting to one man’s battle
against his demons and the other’s struggle for the love of a woman.
Biography
Iván Repila was born in Bilbao in 1978. He is a writer, editor and cultural administrator. The cofounder of the publisher Masmédula Ediciones, which specializes in contemporary poetry, he
has worked for different national and international bodies and institutions on the production,
coordination and management of cultural congresses and events and theatre, music and dance
festivals. He is the author of the novels Una comedia canalla (A Scoundrel Comedy, Libros del
Silencio, 2012) and El niño que robó el caballo de Atila (The Boy who Stole Attila’s Horse, Libros
del Silencio, 2013), which was published in ten countries. Several film producers have recently
acquired the options to both novels for cinematic adaptations.
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26
Eduardo Sacheri
La noche de la Usina (The Night of the Power Plant)
Alfaguara, 2016
ARGENTINA
Rights holder: Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial
FICTION
Agent: Agencia Literaria Irene Barki
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
Premio Alfaguara de Novela 2016
In a small town of the Buenos Aires province, many things seem be on the verge
of dying out. During the economic crisis of 2001 that ended up with the freezing of
economic assets, a group of friends decide put all their savings into a joint project
which is meant to save them from poverty. However, they fall prey to the embargo on
their bank account and the scheming of an unscrupulous bank clerk. They are to get
their money back at any cost…
Biography
Eduardo Sacheri is the author of several collections of short stories –all of which have been
incredibly successful in Argentina— and five novels. His first one, La Preguna de sus ojos (The
Question in their Eyes, Galerna 2005, Alfaguara 2009) was adapted for the screen by Juan José
Campanella, and the film won many prestigious awards including the Academy Award for Best
Foreign Film in 2010. The book was translated into over 20 languages. He is also the author of
the novels Aráoz y la verdad (Aráoz and the Truth, 2008), which was adapted for the stage; Papeles
en el viento (Papers in the Wind, 2011), adapted for the screen and directed by Juan Taraturo; and
of Ser feliz era eso (That Was Happiness, 2014). His latest novel, La Noche de la Usina (The Night of
the Power Plant) was awarded the XIXth Premio Alfaguara de Novela in June 2016.
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27
Carles Sala i Vila
L’home de les mans de xocolata (The Man with Chocolate Hands)
Arcàdia, 2016
SPAIN
Rights holder: Ute Körner Literary Agent
FIRST READERS (8-10 YEARS)
Agent: Sandra Rodericks
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
Tomeu and Enric are very good friends.
Enric always suggested doing things together with Tomeu: when they were little,
playing in the town square; going to dances when they were teenagers; as adults
spending family holidays together… But Enric always preferred making chocolates:
at any time.
“Giving time is giving life. That’s why it’s the most valuable present, because people
who give time are giving themselves. The opposite of giving time is, clearly, not giving
it. That said, a person who doesn’t give time isn’t someone who has lots of time but
keeps it jealously guarded, it is someone who simply doesn’t have time. In this sense,
life cannot be measured and, paradoxically, the more life we give, the more life we
have.” -Josep Maria Esquirol
Biography
Carles Sala i Vila was born in Girona. He worked as a primary school teacher until he decided to
leave teaching in order to devote himself to crafts and, most particularly, to writing.
Although a very prolific author, he is also very intense. His bibliography includes several books
that have managed to win highly significant literary awards, such as the Premi Josep M. Folch i
Torres, the Premi Barcanova, the Vaixell de Vapor and the Guillem Cifre de Colonya.
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Marcela Serrano
La Novena (La Novena)
Alfaguara, 2016
CHILE
Rights holder: Schavelzon Graham Agencia Literaria
FICTION
Agent: Bárbara Graham
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
Following an absurd misunderstanding, Miguel Flores, a university student, is
arrested at a protest march against the Pinochet dictatorship. After spending a few
days in a local jail, he is sent to an agricultural area close to the capital but isolated
from all forms of political activity. His presence generates fear or hatred among the
locals, except Amelia, a middle aged widow who owns a large farm called La Novena.
She takes in the exile, opens up the doors of her house to him and with them a social
and cultural world that represents everything he hates. Little by little, however, their
budding relationship sees him question his prejudices and his feelings evolve from
deep hatred to attraction. But chance and Miguel’s political activities will lead to an
extremely painful turn of events that has irreparable consequences for them both.
In this moving story, Marcela Serrano introduces us to the emotional world of generations
of women forced to deal with the trauma of being betrayed and betraying in turn.
Foreign rights sold: Italy (Feltrinelli).
Biography
Marcela Serrano (Chile, 1951) has a degree in Engraving from the Universidad Católica and
between 1967 and 1983 worked in different fields of the visual arts, especially artistic installations
(such as body art). She has written several novels that have been published to great success in
Latin America and Europe, adapted for cinema and translated into several languages, including
Nosotras que nos queremos tanto (We Love Each Other So Much), which won the Premio Sor Juana
Inés de la Cruz for best Hispano-American novel written by a woman in 1994, the same year that
Para que no me olvides (So You Don’t Forget Me) won the Premio Municipal de Santiago. Other
novels by Serrano include Antigua vida mía (Antigua and My Life Before); El albergue de las mujeres
tristes (The Home for Sad Women); Nuestra Señora de la Soledad (Our Lady of Solitude); Lo que está
en mi corazón (What’s in my Heart); a finalist in the Premio Planeta; Hasta siempre mujercitas
(Goodbye Forever Little Woman); La llorona (The Weeper) and Diez mujeres (Ten Women). She is
also the author of a short story collection, Dulce enemiga mía (My Sweet Enemy).
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29
Gonzalo Torné
Los años felices (The Happy Years)
Editorial Anagrama, 2017
SPAIN
Rights holder: Editorial Anagrama
LITERARY FICTION
Agent: Paula Canal
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
Some time during the second half of the XXth Century, a young man with an injured
hand called Alfred Montsalvatges arrives at a hospital in New York. He’s a foreigner,
wants to be a writer and, in the eyes of Jean Rosenbloom, the nurse who looks after
him, might just be what she has always been looking for: a fairy-tale prince. Alfred
soon becomes the centre of a group of friends who see him as the miraculous solution
to the things that have been missing fram their lives: a confidante, a friend, a lover…
There are four of them: Kevin Prichard, a young Jewish man with mystical tendencies,
whose jealousies and ambitions provoke moments of involuntary hilarity among he
others; Harry Osborn III, a dilettante, cultured and wealthy heir, who lives as a virtual
hermit in his Riverside mansion, measuring his wit against that of the prince in long
conversations; Claire, the most charismatic of the Rosenbloom sisters, beautiful,
independent, free and adored by all; and Jean, who is noble, generous and discreet.
They are all young, clever, and full of life and they have signed a pact of friendship,
which feels indestructible.
But as youth threatens to abandon them, the «fairy-tale country» they inhabit takes
on more complicated edges. What if their vocations no longer excite them? What if
the future turns them into different people? What if they need to betray themselves
to get what they want? What if the prince is really a fraud? And, what if those years of
happiness never actually belonged to this world?
Atmospheric and elegant, at the same time luminous, lyrical and ironic, Años felices is a
meticulous character study full of style and intelligence about how life is opened up by
ambition and how it can close again. An extraordinary novel in which Gonzalo Torné
takes another step in one of the most personal, ambitious and consistent projects in
contemporary Spanish literature.
Biography
Gonzalo Torné was born in Barcelona in 1976. He is the author of two previous novels published
in Spain, for which he won the Premio Jaén de Novela and was a finalist for the Premio Nacional
de Narrativa.
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Kirmen Uribe
La hora de despertarnos juntos (The Hour of Waking Together)
Susa (Basque), Seix Barral (Spanish), 2016
BASQUE
Rights holder: Pontas Literary & Film Agency
LITERARY FICTION
Agent: Maria Cardona
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
The great novel of the Basque, Spanish and European history throughout the 20th
Century until our present days.
The incredible life of a woman who fought for her ideals.
Karmele Urresti is in Ondarroa, her hometown, when the civil war starts. Almost
everyone in town escapes and goes on exile, but she decides to stay to take care of
the wounded and to free his father, who is in jail. It’s only when the war comes to an
end that she leaves her hometown and goes to France, where she becomes involved
with the Basque Cultural Embassy. It is there where she meets her future husband,
the musician Txomin Letamendi. Together they travel Europe, but when they know
that Paris has fallen to the Germans, they flee to Venezuela. In Venezuela history gets
again in their lives. Txomin decides to join the Basque Secret Services (working under
the American OSS) and so the family goes back to Europe, just in the middle of World
War II. He spies the Nazis until he gets arrested in Barcelona, under a dictatorship he
won’t survive. Karmele will have to risk everything and part, again and alone, with the
blind hope of someone who leaves behind what one loves most.
Rights sold: Catalan (Edicions 62), Galician (Xerais), Spanish (Seix Barral/Grupo Planeta).
*Option publisher in France (Gallimard)
Biography
Kirmen Uribe (Ondarroa, 1970) is, according to the critics, one of the most relevant writers of his
generation in Spain. Bilbao-New York-Bilbao earned him, at 39, the biggest and most prestigious
literary distinction for a Spanish author, the National Prize of Literature, confirming him as
one of the most interesting and original novelists in Basque and in Spain. The novel has been
translated into over a dozen languages, including French (Gallimard), Japanese (Hakusui Sha)
and English (Seren Books). It was selected by Foyles as one of the 15 books of the year in the
UK in 2014. His poetry collection Meanwhile Take My Hand (Graywolf, 2007) was a finalist for
the 2008 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. His second novel, Mussche/What Makes The World
Go Around, written during a residency in Sausalito (CA), has been translated into Chinese and
Japanese. His works have been published at several American publications as The New Yorker,
Open City, Circumference or Little Star. He has a column at El País Semanal. He writes in Basque.
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Ariel Urquiza
No hay risas en el cielo (There’s no Laughter in the Sky)
Corregidor, 2017
ARGENTINA
Rights holder: Literarische Agentur Mertin Witt
SHORT STORIES
Agent: Nicole Witt
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
The characters in No hay risas en el cielo (There’s no Laughter in the Sky) move in
different circles in the drug scene between Argentina and Mexico. A microcosm
is created which inevitably casts a spell on the reader. The stories each have their
own plot and yet are intertwined. There is the young Jonathan, who supplies a party
organizer in Mexico with pot. As one of the guests slips the marijuana to the ground,
he cannot control himself. His mother had carried the substance as a “mule” and died
of a ruptured packet. In order not to be killed by the drug cartel for which his mother
worked, Jonathan is forced to open her body and remove the goods.
The boundary between perpetrators and victims is sometimes rather fluid. The head of
the largest drug cartel, called Murciélago, meaning bat, is blind. One night he senses
that someone is watching him. In his immediate vicinity, a mobile phone rings. When
Murciélago the next day hears the same ringtone coming from one of his men, he
gives orders to kill him. Too bad that the day after the ringtone sounds again from
another employee.
The stories each have their own plot and yet are intertwined. No hay risas en el cielo is
the brilliant debut of Ariel Urquiza, whose talent is obvious and who in 2016 deservedly
won the prestigious Casa de las Américas prize.
Biography
Ariel Urquiza was born in Argentina in 1972. He studied Journalism and works as an EnglishSpanish translator. In 2013, his novel Ya pueden encender las luces was shortlisted for the Eugenio
Cambaceres Prize of the National Library (Argentina). In 2016, his short-story book No hay risas
en el cielo (presented as Ni una sola voz en el cielo) won the Casa de las Américas Prize. He has
various short stories published in anthologies and magazines.
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32
Eloy Urroz
Demencia (Dementia)
Penguin Random House México, 2016
MEXICO
Rights holder: Antonia Kerrigan Literary Agency
NARRATIVE FICTION
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
Two murders. Three friends. To pretty pianists. A crazed city and a frenetic story
are the ingredients of this savage thriller, written by Eloy Urroz, author of The
Novelist’s Wife.
A black and surrealist novel, Demencia is the hallucinating story of the violinist Fabián
Alfaro, who on the Thursday 27 of June will publicly play Beethoven’s three Opus 30
sonatas. Time is of the essence… However, each time he tries to practice with Daniela,
his accompanist at the piano, another woman appears: Herminia, half dream, half
witch, possible half-sister to Daniela.
But, who is this woman? Does she exist? Why does everything come crumbling down
into madness after their meetings? What imprecise relationship does Hermina have
with the two murders? Or is it perhaps her father, “the man with the thin moustache”,
the true magnet that unites and unhinges the lives of Demencia?
Biography
Eloy Urroz is novelist, poet and essay writer. He studied for a degree in Hispanic Language
and Literature at UNAM, Mexico, and took his doctorate at the University of California, USA.
Currently he is professor of Latin American Literature for the Citadel, South Carolina, USA.
He has published the following novels: Las leyes que el amor elige (The Laws that Love Chooses,
1993), Las Rémoras (Las Rémoras, 1996), Herir tu fiera carne (To Scorn your Wild Flesh, 1997), Las
almas abatidas (Despondent Souls, 2000), Un siglo detrás de mí (A Century after Me, 2004), Fricción
(Friction, 2008), and La familia interrumpida (The Family Interrupted, 2011). He is co-author of
Tres bosquejos del mal (Three Evil Sketches, 1994) and Crack, Instrucciones de uso (Crack, Users
Manual, 2005). He has written various essay and poetry books. His work has been translated
into several languages.
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Muriel Villanueva
La Gatera (The Catflap)
Ara Llibres (Catalan, 2012), Navona Editorial (Spanish, 2017)
CATALAN
Rights holder: Ara Llibres c/o International Editors
FICTION
Agent: Isabel Ràfols
Contact: [email protected]
Synopsis
Prize J. M. Casero, 2011
Prize Llança de Sant Jordi Òmnium Cultural
Valencia Writers Critics’s Award 2012
Raquel lost her whole family when she was only twelve years old and was raised by her
grandmother in a small village. Now, at thirty five, when her grandmother has also died
and she is definitively alone, she has suddenly inherited two symmetrical flats from two
distant cousins of her grandmother. One of the flats looks at the street and the other
one, towards a patio where Raquel finds a marmalade street cat.
La Gatera is the tale of a whole year in the life of Raquel once she moves to one of the
flats and decides to go back to University and study Literature to learn to write. It’s
also the story of a woman trying to find herself and trying to finally recover from
the tragedy of her past. And it’s, of course, the story of the trip we all have to take to
become ourselves.
«A narrative that reminds us of Murakami with audiovisual references.» –El Periódico
Biography
Muriel Villanueva i Perarnau (València, 1976) is a writer and teacher from Valencia. She studied
Comparative Literature at the Universitat of Barcelona and Musical Education at the Universitat
of València. She’s Music teacher and Creative Writing teacher at the L’Ateneu Barcelona School
of Writing. She has published: Mares, i si sortim de l’armari?: La història d’una família quasi feliç,
2006, translated into Spanish (Lumen), Portuguese (Duarte Reis), Korean (Nangiyala) and Polish
(Adpublik); Jo toco i tu balles, 2009; Baracoa, 2010; Motril, 86, 2013, and Duna, diari d’un estiu, 2015,
a novel for younger readers.
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