Rosa Montero, awarded the National Literature Prize 2017

Photography © Patricia A. Llaneza

Yesterday, November 13, he was granted the National Literature Award 2017 to the writer Rosa Montero. From Actualidad Literatura, first of all, congratulate the author for this well-deserved award and we, our readers, leave you with a summary of her 5 best books. If you haven't read anything of his yet, this is your chance. Choose one of these that we present here, that we are almost convinced that you will love it, whatever your choice.

«Stories of women» (Alfaguara, January 2012)

According to the author's own words, «This book brings together, in a more expanded version, the biographies of women that I published in the Sunday supplement of El País. I am not sure where to frame these works: although they are highly documented, they are neither academic biographies nor journalistic articles, but very passionate, very personal texts. They are stories of unique women that I tried to understand. There are generous ones and there are evil ones, cowards or brave, turbulent or timid; All of them are, yes, very original and some are astonishing due to the extraordinary nature of their adventures. But I think that, no matter how strange they may seem, we can always recognize ourselves in them. And it is that each one of us encloses within himself all the lives ».

"Lovers and enemies" (Alfaguara, January 2012)

In this book we can find a series of stories. Stories that refer to texts that deal with that dark place of pleasure and pain that is the couple: that is, they deal with love and lack of love, the need and the invention of the other. They are stories that speak of carnal desire and passion; from habit and despair; of happiness and hell.

These stories, often disturbing, bittersweet, full of humor and the melancholy of love, make up a suggestive mirror of our darkest and deepest intimacy, of that abyssal and incandescent territory that always refuses to be named.

"History of the transparent king" (Alfaguara, January 2012)

In a turbulent twelfth century, leola, an adolescent peasant girl, undresses a dead warrior on a battlefield and dresses in her iron clothes, to protect herself under a virile disguise. Thus begins the dizzying and exciting story of his life, an existential event that is not only Leola's but also ours, because this adventure novel with fantastic ingredients is actually telling us about the current world and what we all are.

"Story of the Transparent King" it is an unusual journey to an unknown Middle Ages that is smelled and felt on the skin, it is a fable that moves by its epic grandeur, it is one of those books that are not read, but lived. Original and powerful, Rosa Montero's novel has that overflowing force of books destined to become classics.

"The ridiculous idea not to see you again" (Seix Barral, 2013)

When Rosa Montero read the wonderful newspaper that Marie Curie It began after the death of her husband, and which is included at the end of this book, she felt that the story of that fascinating woman who faced her time filled her head with ideas and emotions.

The ridiculous idea of ​​never seeing you again was born from that fire of words, from that dizzying whirlwind. Following Curie's extraordinary career, Rosa Montero builds a narration halfway between personal memory and everyone's memory, between the analysis of our time and the intimate evocation. These are pages that speak of overcoming pain, the relationships between men and women, the splendor of sex, the good death and the beautiful life, science and ignorance, the saving force of literature and the wisdom of those who learn to enjoy existence fully and lightly.

Alive, free and original, this unclassifiable book includes photos, memories, friendships and anecdotes that convey the primitive pleasure of listening to good stories. An authentic, exciting and complicit text that will catch you from its first pages.

"The meat" (Alfaguara, 2016)

An opera night Soledad she hires a gigolo to accompany her to the show so she can make an ex-lover jealous. But a violent and unforeseen event complicates everything and marks the beginning of a disturbing, volcanic and perhaps dangerous relationship. She is sixty years old; the gigolo, thirty-two.

From the humor, but also from the rage and despair of those who rebel against the ravages of time, the story of Soledad's life is interwoven with the stories of the cursed writers in the exhibition she is organizing for the National Library.

The meat It is a bold and surprising novel, the freest and most personal of those Rosa Montero has written.

This work has won, among others, the Spring Novel Award, el Grinzane Cavour Award, el Qué Leer Award for Best Book of the Year and Madrid Critics Award.

Do you need more reasons to read this great writer? If these synopses haven't convinced you, we don't know what will.


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