Eva Baltasar irrumpió en el panorama literario con 'Permagel', libro que ganó el Premi Llibreter, enseguida destacó por alzarse como una voz poderosa y contundente, hasta granítica. También por introducir un tema relativamente poco tratado hasta entonces en las letras catalanas: el lesbianismo visto desde la actualidad. Recibe también lo suyo la reproducción asistida, por lo artificial, deshumanizador incluso, del proceso. Se añade la variable de las parejas del mismo sexo, en las que el imperativo de ser madre puede no estar tan condicionado por los códigos de la familia tradicional; aún así, ciertas actitudes se acercan peligrosamente a una masculinidad de toda la vida (la amistad masculina como apoyo ante la crisis conyugal, el rechazo de la comunicación directa), no exenta de gestos nobles (al final todo sea hace, pese a las reticencias, por un amor puro, desinteresado), aflorando incluso sentimientos insospechados bajo una superficie pétrea. Las dos mujeres que se nos describen representan, creo yo, polaridades demasiado extremas. El punto de vista contiene un fuerte sesgo, pero la novela es más dura, concentrada, que su predecesora; un desgranar minucioso de un mundo interior, pese a lo que pueda parecer, muy sensible, a partir de elaboradas comparaciones, de imágenes muy visuales, rotundas, al borde del rebuscamiento expresivo, en un intento de comunicar, poner palabras a la manera en que una siente y ve las cosas (aunque podemos cuestionar la credibilidad de semejante registro viniendo de quien viene, de alguien tan proclive a lo sencillo, tan poco dado a los alardes retóricos). El desenlace, un retorno al punto de partida, cargado de resignación, viene marcado por una escena sumamente bizarra, al límite de lo creíble, aunque profundamente simbólica. Life develops without overwhelming me, it squeezes into every minute, it implodes; I hold it in my hands. I can give anything up, because nothing is essential when you refuse to imprison life in a narrative. Este libro ha sido una lectura conjunta que ha generado un gran intercambio de opiniones. El libro me ha gustado, pero el debate sobre el libro, aún más. Narrated by a young woman who’s fixed on suicide, past loves, family, and everything in between. Trying to find her way in life, our protagonist moves to Scotland where she becomes an au pair, reads all day, and starts to hate the colour green. Next, she tries her hand at teaching Spanish to businesspeople in Brussels and has a love affair with her client that she must put a stop to once marriage is proposed. I've never read anything like this. Permafrost is sharp, poetic, philosophical, and raw, with many fleeting moments. Eva Baltasar breathes a memorable and discerning character to life!’

International Booker prize announces longlist to celebrate

Pink News: Booker Prize nominee Eva Baltasar on breaking boundaries in lesbian motherhood novel Boulder 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 » Perhaps the aspect I love about Baltasar so much is not only is the language beautiful but they are also an investigation of lived experience constantly aware as experienced through language. ‘ She uncovers with language,’ we read, Boulder and Samsa are ‘ loaning each other language,’ by learning each other’s native language and, as Boulder tells us ‘ language stakes us when we are born and shapes us, governs our cells…builds us as people and sometimes we are not aware of it.’ This is an extension on the narrative style of being so enclosed in Boulder’s perspective on events as it allows her to shape herself through her language of telling as well as shape the events in a way that she can process them. It is a reclaiming of self after having been reshaped externally, most notably by her relationship with Tinna: Opposed to all family ties, and jealous of her partner’s child, our narrator refuses to resign herself to her new role of secondary character in her own story, and lashes out by drinking and engaging in clandestine sex with other women, much as would a character in a Charles Bukowski story (an author with whom Baltasar shares more Escrito en clave de un monólogo interior de menos de 150 páginas, Baltasar nos permitirá profundizar en la intimidad de los pensamientos de Boulder, en donde presenciaremos una amplia gama de sentimientos conforme avance el tiempo y tanto ella como su relación con Sasha maduran y se transforman. Desde la ilusión de los comienzos al desengaño de los finales, pasando por la incertidumbre del futuro, el tedio de la rutina y hasta la maravilla del descubrimiento, Baltasar crea un relato que destaca por la sencillez de sus hechos y la complejidad de la mente de su protagonista.» Fuad Gonzalo Chacón en La nación — Una nueva chanceAbreu’s emotionally resonant debut charts the tumultuous friendship between two 10-year-old girls over the course of the summer of 2005 in the Canary Islands. The unnamed narrator is fascinated by Continue reading »

Boulder by Eva Baltasar, Julia Sanches | Waterstones

Boulder is a short, visceral, powerful, poetic novel about Love between two women and the impact motherhood has on their relationship. As I read somewhere else, there is nothing new in this book but I also did not read anything quite like it. My question is whether Baltasar is insinuating that no matter the circumstances, all women have motherhood ingrained in them? judging by Boulder’s tough no nonsense exterior, I assume so. This is a book where you feel very close to the narrator. You don’t leave her side for a second, you feel every emotion she describes, with an extraordinary poetic force.’

The judges said Standing Heavy, about two generations of Ivoirians trying to make their way as undocumented workers in Paris, “is the story of colonialism and consumerism, of the specifics of power, and of the hope of the 60s diminishing as society turns cynical and corrupt”.