Catalan authors: Quim Monzó

Quim Monzó (Barcelona, 1952) is probably the most international of Catalan authors and one of the most widely read contemporaneans. His works have been translated to a host of other languages. He has a very informative homepage, here, where you also find the references to the English versions of some of his books, and what is more, some links to articles, etc. of his published in English. Amazon.com lists three books of his available in English.
Several times a week he writes columns in the op-ed section of La Vanguardia, the most prestigious of Catalan dailies (though it started out as a Spanish newspaper more than 125 years ago, and only in 2011 adopted a Catalan version). He comments on daily life, political events, or articles he read in foreign-language journals not in reach of most of his readers. The Wikipedia article dedicated to Monzó has all the relevant biographical information and links to some shorter prose of his, here.

75th anniversary of Miguel de Unamuno's death

He was a Spanish writer, philosopher, etc. from the Basque country, specialized in Portuguese culture and also interested in Catalan literature. He had a lot of quarrels with right-wing authority, and he died half a year after General Franco's coup that he originally welcomed. One finds more information in the Wikipedia article in English here, a lot more in the Spanish one here.

Catalan brands: a work in progress

Munich "Gresca" 2005

A few weeks ago I started this article on Catalan brands. Some of them are really famous and maybe you weren't aware that they were Catalan. As I do not find the time to write a complete text in one go, I will start with some notes and go on as I find the time.
Borges are dealing in nuts and other dry fruits. They are headquartered in Reus, Tarragona province.
Chupa Chups, maker of lollypops, might be the best-known Catalan brand worldwide (second only to FC Barcelona, of course). They started out in Barcelona but the original owners sold out. One can find their corporate history and more information on their official website in Spanish here, or in the Wikipedia entry here.
If we stick with an alphabetical order, the next brand would be Custo Barcelona (corporate website and online store here). I guess that the city of Barcelona really subsidised some of the fashion designer Custo's projects to have the city name as part of the brand.
Next in line would be Desigual, another fashion brand coming from Barcelona (corporate website here).
Munich started out as a sports-shoe maker and then discovered the market for high-priced fashionable sports shoes (their corporate website is here).
Mango was started by a Turkish entrepreneur residing in Catalonia. Their online shop is here.
Seat is the only "Spanish" automaker, though owned by Volkswagen.

all real Cava sparkling wine comes from Sant Sadurni d'Anoia, close to Barcelona

El País recently had this article on top Spanish retail companies.

11.11.11: lottery day in Spain

Today more or less every inhabitant of the peninsula will be attentive to a lottery draw by ONCE ("Eleven"): there will be a main price of 11 M EUR, 11 prices of 1 M EUR each, and then thousands more of more modest cash prices. Yesterday the organization announced that all of their tickets had been sold - at a price of 5,- EUR each. "ONCE" means "11" in Spanish but is the acronym of  the "Organización Nacional de Ciegos Españoles" (National Organization of Spanish Blinds/Visually Challenged). It started as a self-help group more than 70 years ago, and now is a powerful foundation with worthy aims. Their webpages are multi-lingual and to get an idea you can start here.

"The Red Band Society" on ABC

These days, the regional Catalan television TV3's homepage has had the news that the North American ABC was interested in buying the concept of its series "Polseres vermelles" [Red wristbands / bracelets]. The following is an unauthorized translation/summary of the main points:

The series, created by writer Albert Espinosa [whose English speaking website is here] and directed by Pau Freixas, is inspired in the daily life of a group of children in a children's hospital struggling to cope with the various diseases they suffer. The name of the series is taken from the red plastic bracelets they all wear as a type of patient's ID.

Last season, the series inspired the phenomenon "red bracelets": a legion of faithful followers, most of them teenagers, who made their parents watch, too. These youthful fans, however, did not have enough with watching TV, but moved their passion to the Internet: there sprung up a Facebook group dedicated to the series, and a blog that extends the contents of each chapter immediately after release.

 
TV3 is already working on the second season of the series, after the success of the first 13 episodes of the first season.

On Oct. 28, the Catalan daily El Punt Avui added the following: 

Yesterday it was confirmed that behind the project there a two heavyweights of the industry in Hollywood: Friends creator Marta Kauffman and the filmmaker Steven Spielberg, through his production company Dreamworks, are finalizing a deal to adapt the series under the name "The Red Band Society". Its Catalan creator Albert Espinosa yesterday confirmed via Twitter the information that had appeared in the specialized press in the U.S. 

The Planeta book prize 2011

The Planeta, named after its sponsor, the biggest Spanish media and publishing house, is probably the most generous prize in literature (600,000 EUR) after the Nobel. The article by Rosa Mora from El País could be translated like this:

"Brazilian" Planeta to Javier MoroThe author won the prize with a chronicle of Emperor Pedro I. who won independence for Brazil - Inma Chacón, runner-up with the novel "Time of sand"
Javier Moro wins the 60th edition of the Premio Planeta (601,000 EUR) with a novel whose title will be "The empire are you", a fascinating chronicle of the life of Emperor Pedro I of Brazil (1798-1834), appointed Prince Regent by his father, Joao VI of Portugal.Pedro I joined the cause of independence and was appointed first Perpetual Defender of Brazil, and then emperor. He had a very hectic life and a reign that lasted nine years. History and adventures are mixed in this novel, topics that equally passionate Javier Moro (Madrid, 1955). The son of a Spanish airline executive and a French mother, the writer has traveled since very young to Africa, Asia and the Americas. He studied History and Anthropology and worked as a researcher for Dominique Lapierre and Pierre Collins.His first novel, "Paths of Freedom", appeared in 1992. Moro traveled for three years in the Amazon by plane, boat, bus and even on foot to reconstruct the story of Chico Mendes, a humble rubber tapper who became an international symbol of environmental protection. It was followed by "Jaipuur's foot", in which two young men, one injured in an accident, and another survivor of the Khmer Rouge era come together to face a pessimistic future. We also find the spirit of resistance and hope in The Mountains of the Buddha, which takes place in Tibet.As one can see, Javier Moro does not avoid the hard and controversial issues, as became apparent in Five Past Midnight in Bhopal, which he wrote with Dominique Lapierre. It discusses the toxic gases that escaped in 1984, from a Dow Chemical factory in the Indian city of Bhopal and killed 30,000 people.There followed Passion India in which Moro reconstructs the love and betrayal between the Andalusian Anita Delgado and the Maharajah of Kapurthala, in northern India. In his latest work, "The Red sari", we also find history and adventures: a European is involved in the intrigues of the Nehru-Gandhi family. The novel caused irritation in India, where they burned copies of the book and portraits of the author. [Though it is unclear for this blogger how they evaluated it as he could not find any English edition on Amazon...]Inma Chacón (Zafra, Badajoz, 1954), twin sister of the late Dulce Chacón [the more famous writer of the two], was runner-up last night (150,250 euros) with the novel "Time of sand", which portrays three women in a complex family in Spain in the early decades the twentieth century.Chacón made herself known as an author in 2005, two years after the death of her sister, with "The Indian Princess", a novel that Dulce had started. She then published "The Filipinianas", about a saga of aristocratic and travelling women. This year she has published "Nick", in which a young woman creates a fake profile on Facebook to attract a guy  from her neighborhood whom she likes.

People here say that the runner-up is normally the worthier novel; the first price goes to the bigger name author and guarantees a good profit on the novel. I don't know how credible this theory is, as this year six of the ten finalists had presented their entries under a pseudonym.

Spain making (negative) headlines again

Today on the title pages of the online editions of the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal. Not really encouraging - but that is what we have been watching on TV news for quite a while now... While its football teams and national team are world class, the economy is going from one downgrade to the next - one of the founders of FC Barcelona was a Swiss immigrant (Johann Gamper); he could have brought other skills too...