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Alberto Torres
Blandina Spain
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Alberto Torres Blandina is a writer, musician, playwright
and a part-time journalist, although his main profession is teaching Spanish
language and literature. He was rewarded the international novel prize in 2007 Las
Dos Orillas for Cosas que nunca ocurrirían en Tokio. He was also a finalist for
the Azorín Award in 2008 with the four-handed novel Hotel Postmoderno,
and a finalist for the 2008 Café Gijón award with Niños rociando gato
con gasolina.
In Cosas que nunca ocurrirían en Tokio (“Things that could never happen in Tokyo”), the protagonist Salvador Fuensanta works
in Madrid airport, on the verge of retirement. He sweeps the corridors and
watches people come and go. There are hundreds of stories he tells, whenever he
finds the time, to his friend Juana, an older kiosk attendant. Some of the
stories are unbelievable. But as he says, the truth is often unbelievable… and
often starts with a lie. Like that woman that mistook him from afar for an old
lover and even after she had realised that it was not
him, decided to continue with the mistaken identity in order to finalise an
unfinished love story. Or like the story about the strange Club of the
Impossible Desires that designs lives made to measure, and rewards every new
member with a free partner. There is the one about the young man who invented a
language that removed all the bad in the world or the scientist who came across
the man he himself should have been according to mathematical logic.
This novel was compared to Muriel Barbery's
bestseller "The Elegance of the Hedgehog". The author's German
publishing house DVA starts with a print run of 40,000 copies.
A ticket to a delightful
literary flight.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
The stories are full of imagination, surprise, and life.
Qué leer
Imbued with tenderness, humour and fantasy, his stories are to be
savoured with pleasure.
Without lifting a finger, this man takes us on a journey.
VIF L'Express
Full of spirit!
Magazin littéraire
This first novel has the freshness of a mint candy and the charm of a
children's book. Irresistible.
Femmes
Alberto Torres Blandina constructs a novel out
of a light movement, and from there he provokes a real feast for those who love
good literature.
Luis Sepúlveda
There is nothing easier, we learn in Niños rociando gato con gasolina (“Kids splashing Cat with Gasoline”), than convincing a father his son is
special. That he will be amongst the responsibles for changing the world, and
for bringing a new spiritual and peaceful era to earth. The
Aquarius Age. And then tell him about a school for children like them,
where they will learn to develop their abilities before the world destroys
them.
Since the end of the seventies the hippie movement
and later on the new age believed in the Age of Aquarius and with this the
widespread theory that its first leaders were being born amongst us. This is
the story of four children, and the adults they became, chosen to lead the
future and educated by a man inspired by his belief in one beautiful idea.
In his new
novel Mapa desplegable
Jaime has
a photo store, and although he loves his wife and daughter, everything seems
predictable to him. His hobby is collecting his customers' sexiest nude photos.
One of them is Alberto, who photographs women in explicit poses until suddenly
there are only romantic pictures of one girl. When Jaime happens to come across
her at a station one day, he pretends to recognise her, introducing himself as
Pedro. Elisa goes along with his story, and the two of them invent a new
present.
Elisa was
happy with Alberto until she became the victim of a rape. After that, Alberto
saw himself as a monster, sex as impure, and he withdrew increasingly, before
finally walking out without explaining himself to Elisa. Shortly after that,
Elisa meets the mysterious Pedro and begins a new life with him, promising to
one another never to let their relationship become routine – until their carefully
built paradise begins to crumble.
In a
clear, authentic language, the three protagonists each narrate their own lives.
What starts out an entertaining and witty read soon becomes a deeply moving
story about human identity and good and evil that will occupy the reader long
after the last page.
Original editions and rights sold:
Novels:
Cosas que
nunca ocurrirían en Tokio
Barcelona:
Norma 2009, 157 p.
English
sample translation available
France:
Métailié 2009 ● Germany: DVA 2010, Random House Audio 2010, pb btb 2012 ● Greece:
Opera 2009 ●
Guatemala: F&G Editores 2010 ● Israel: Keter ●
Italy: Guanda 2009 ● Portugal:
Quetzal 2011 ● Serbia: Treci Trg
Niños rociando gato con gasolina
Madrid: Siruela 2009, 191 p.
Mapa
desplegable del laberinto
Selected as
one of the Best Books of Spring 2011 by El
País
Madrid: Siruela 2011, 224 p.
France:
Métailié 2011
As part of the authors' collective "Hotel Postmoderno":
Hotel
Postmoderno
La
Coruña: InÉditor 2008, 205 p.
De la Habana
un barco
Madrid: Lengua de Trapo 2010, 237 p.
Suicídame
Webnovel 2010