English / Español
The 2010 Spanish session took place on December 13th at Instituto Cervantes, Amster Yard Gallery.
The selected book was “Winter Journey” by Jaume Cabré.
The lecture was moderated by Xavier Vila. Professor of Spanish and Catalan Languages at Columbia University.
With this highly original collection of short stories, Catalonian writer Jaume Cabré takes his place among the masters of the form. In Winter Journey, the reader encounters disparate and often desperate characters —pianist, cuckold, whore, organ builder, rabbi, priest, scholar, thief, madman, Holocaust survivor, oligarch, failed artist— who challenge notions about will, morality, and “the riddle of existence.” This is not a selection of individual stories, but a singularly brilliant and enigmatic narrative, novelistic in its approach, with mysterious connections linking characters, objects, and ideas across time and place. The text takes the form of a “Schubertian” musical progression in prose, a philosophical mystery moving freely through a labyrinth of centuries and cities, historical and contemporary.
Richly allusive with its themes and motifs of music and art, Winter Journey will continue to provoke questions long after the reader has closed the book. This edition represents the first translation of Cabré’s work into English and an invitation to many more readers to come along for the ride
Jaume Cabre's Winter Journey by Chad W. Post. Published September 7th 2010 in Three Percent: A resource for international literature at the University of Rochester.
Jaume Cabré i Fabré (Barcelona, 1947) is a Catalan philologist, novelist and screenwriter. Graduate in Catalan Philology by the University of Barcelona, high-school professor in leave of absence and teacher to the University of Lleida, member of the Philological Section of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans.
During many years he has combined literary writing with teaching. He has also worked in the television and cinematographic scripting. With Joaquim Maria Puyal he was the creator and scriptwriter of the first Catalan television series: La Granja (1989–1992), after which followed other titles like Estació d'Enllaç (1994–1998), Crims (2000) and the tvmovies La dama blanca (1987), Nines russes (2003) and Sara (2003). He has also written, together with Jaume Fuster, Vicenç Villatoro and Antoni Verdaguer, the script of the Antoni Verdaguer's films La teranyina (1990), based on his novel, and Havanera (1993).
Since 1980 he won more than 20 important literary prizes. With Winter Journey is winner of the 2010 “Premi d''Honor de les Lletres Catalanes”.
For more information about the European Book Club, visit http://europeanbookclub.org/
