Novel excerpt The Dead Writer by Núria Añó

THE DEAD WRITER, Núria Añó. Translated by Debbie Garrick

Anna is a middle-aged writer who has brought up her daughter all alone. Now that her daughter, Berta, is all grown up she wants to meet the unknown father she’s only ever seen in a photograph. Berta has a boyfriend called Hans, and as their relationship reaches crisis point, her need to connect with her father grows stronger. Hans works in a factory and has a sister named Clara. Clara is lonely and misunderstood, and has a bit of an obsession with this guy who rides a motorbike.

All these lives intertwine, but within them is the story of Anna Flieder, a woman who decides to write a story based on her life. Her inspiration? A shadowy form of the man who she abandoned all those years ago…

"The story shows the process of creation of a literary work (...) It's a novel aimed at those who like to read, those who let themselves be absorbed into the reading because it requires a lot of imagination and there are lots of things which are just hinted at." -Review in La Mañana

"This book tells the story of Anna, a writer, and the world and lives of the people around her. Anna lives her literary life as her real one, suffering from a kind of schizophrenia as the characters in her books collide with her life in their desire to see the light. The original was published in Spain in 2008." -Debbie Garrick, Translator

"The Dead Writer" is, in essence, an invitation to all those who enjoy the way that literature reflects itself within a literary work. But it also represents the opportunity to follow other characters with feelings in situations that inevitably provoke recognition. [...] A delightful literary text which stands out with metaphorical language and suggests images that are capable of depicting daily scenes containing a multitude of possibilities that often, life does not let us see." -Dr Alexandra Santos Pinheiro, in the magazine Resonancias Literarias, no. 153

"The Dead Writer, a novel which not only demonstrates the author's skill but also how we see her handling of the essential tool of all writers, language. [...] This novel is also an insightful literary artefact which is sure to satisfy the diverse enjoyment of the modern reader." -Letralia, Tierra de Letras

"The author Núria Añó masterfully weaves a tale that delves deep into an exploration of the modern individual." -Noury Bakrim, Translator

CATALÀ (L'ESCRIPTORA MORTA): 2008 Omicron ISBN: 978-84-96496-65-1

ESPAÑOL (LA ESCRITORA MUERTA): 2020 ISBN: 9780463101407 (eBook) 2018 1981078959 / 9781981078950 (Paperback)

ITALIANO (LA SCRITTRICE MORTA): 2018 ISBN: 9781547542710 (eBook) 154754824X / 9781547548248 (Paperback)

PORTUGUÊS (A ESCRITORA MORTA): 2018 ISBN: 9781547549801 (eBook) 15-47553-38-3 / 9781547553389 (Paperback)

FRANÇAIS (L'ÉCRIVAINE MORTE): 2018 ISBN: 9781547559886 (eBook) 1547560746 / 9781547560745 (Paperback)

NEDERLANDS (DE DODE SCHRIJFSTER): 2019 ISBN: 9781547580194 (eBook) 154758307X / 978-1547583072 (Paperback)

DEUTSCH (DIE TOTE SCHRIFTSTELLERIN): 2019 ISBN: 9781071521731 (eBook) 1071524194 / 9781071524190 (Paperback)

GREEK (I NEKRI SINGRAPHEAS): 2020 ISBN: 9781071526521 (eBook) 1071530445 / 9781071530443 (Paperback)

ENGLISH (THE DEAD WRITER): 2020 ISBN: 9781071533307 (eBook)

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Núria Añó is a Catalan/Spanish writer, translator and speaker at international conferences, where she usually talks about literary creation, the cinema, cities or authors like Elfriede Jelinek, Patricia Highsmith, Salka Viertel, Alexandre Dumas fils, Franz Werfel or Karen Blixen. She has shown her work at the following universities and institutions: Lleida University (UdL), Túnez University, Jaen University (UJA), The International University of Andalucia (UNIA), The High Council for Scientific Investigation (CISC-Madrid), The Sysmän Kirjasto Library in Finland, The Writers’ Association of Shanghai (SWA), Fudan University in China, The East China University, Sinan Mansion, The Instituto Cervantes in Shanghai, the Conrad Festival in Poland, the Massolit Bookshop, Bar Bazza and the Instituto Cervantes in Krakow along with other libraries and secondary or higher education establishments. She is also a member of various juries at international competitions. Some of her works, including novels, short stories and essays have been published and translated into Spanish, French, English, Italian, German, Polish, Chinese, Latvian, Portuguese, Dutch and Greek.

Her first published novel Els nens de l’Elisa ([The children of Elisa] Omicron, 2006) was awarded third prize in the 24th Ramon Llull Novel Award, one of the most prestigious awards for Catalan literature, awarded by Editorial Planeta. L’escriptora morta ([The Dead Writer, 2020] Omicron) was published in 2008; Núvols baixos ([Lowering clouds, 2020] Omicron) in 2009; La mirada del fill ([The son’s gaze] Abadia) in 2012; El salón de los artistas exiliados en California ([The Salon of Exiled Artists in California, 2020), a biography on Jewish screenwriter Salka Viertel.

Núria won the 18th Joan Fuster Prize for Fiction Ciutat d’Almenara, fourth place for international writing at the 2018 Shanghai get-Together and has been awarded with prestigious international grants: Nuoren Voiman Liitto (Finland, 2016), Shanghai Writing Program (China, 2016), Baltic Centre (Sweden, 2017), IWTCR (Greece, 2017), Krakow UNESCO City of Literature (Poland, 2018), IWTH (Latvia, 2019) and IWP (China, 2020).

Her writing centres around the characters’ psychology, often through the use of anti-heroes. The characters are what stands out most about her work, they are generally more relevant than the topic itself. With her feminine, somewhat sentimental introspection, she finds a unique balance between the marginal worlds of parallels. Her novels are open to a wide variety of topics, they deal with important social and current themes like injustice or lack of communication between individuals. The basic plot of her novels does not tell you everything there is to know. By using this method, Añó attempts to involve the reader so that they ask their own questions to discover the deeper meaning of the content.

For a more detailed background of the author visit her webpage www.nuriaanyo.com/en-lectur.html.

The Dead Writer

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