Membrane (“Membrana”) is a highly original novel that puts a spectacular twist on the tradition of speculative fiction from Jorge Luis Borges, Ursula K. LeGuin, Donna Haraway and Ted Chiang. Narrated by a complex artificial intelligence in the year 2100, it tells the secret history of the 21st century: how algorithms gradually took power and secretly built a monumental museum in the Amazon jungle to tell the story of how they became an empire. “There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism”, said Walter Benjamin. The story we are reading, which takes the form of the catalogue of The 21st Century Museum, under which name the novel won the Barbastro Prize for Literature 2021, is no exception. To write it, Jorge Carrión – one of Spain’s most acclaimed and widely translated writers, and a frequent contributor to The New York Times – has invented a neo-language, somewhere between narrative, poetry and essay, which imagines how the artificial intelligences of the future will write. An experimental and philosophical novel that reads like a thriller. A great reflection on the tumultuous relationship between technology and humanity.

Winner of the prestigious Ciudad de Barbastro Prize, worth 15,000 euros.

Did the 21st century begin with the fall of the Twin Towers in New York or with the entry of a virus into a man’s body in Wuhan? Is SARS-CoV-2 the first cyborg pathogen? Are Netflix, Zoom and Amazon multinational pandemics? How can one represent the transformation of science fiction into everyday reality? The Viral (“Lo viral”) is, at the same time, a meticulous reconstruction of the first months of the coronavirus from personal experience, a fragmentary essay on digital virality, the memory of a quarantined library, an experiment in cultural criticism and a false but sincere diary that manages to keep the reader in permanent brain activity and throws up a series of essential questions about the future that awaits us.

Picking up where Bookshops: A Reader’s History left off, Against Amazon (“Contra Amazon”) explores the impact of new technologies on bookshops and libraries. Collecting Jorge Carrión’s essays on these vital cultural spaces, as well as interviews with the writers who love them. Jorge Carrión travels to the innovative libraries and bookstores of Seoul; in Naples and Capri he researches the history of the mythical house of Curzio Malaparte; he interviews booksellers and writers; he talks about books and cities with Alberto Manguel, Iain Sinclair, Luigi Amara and Han Kang; he interprets the libraries of Don Quixote and Captain Nemo, and pays homage to some of the world‘s most fascinating bookstores and libraries. Against Amazon is in equal parts a history of books and bookshops, a reader’s autobiography, a travelogue, a love letter – and, urgently, a manifesto against the corrosive pressures of modern-day capitalism.

In his new book Barcelona: Book of Passageways (“Barcelona. Libro de los pasajes”), Jorge Carrión invites us to stroll through the streets of Barcelona and especially its passageways, those elements of urban life that bring people together and contain hidden stories. The author wanders around the city, speaks with passers-by and the inhabitants of the passagaways. He rediscovers historical characters and stories that have contributed to the development of the city. Carrión tells us about Barcelona, but in reality he is talking about urban spaces all around the world, and the book is also in some ways a tribute to Italo Calvino’s “Invisible Cities”.

In The Deceased (“Los difuntos”), Jorge Carrión tells the prequel to The Dead (“Los muertos”), set in a fictional 19th century New York City. In this society where technological progress reigns, “new ones” are enslaved in order to ensure the working of the steam machines. With time, they will climb the social ladder and become the “old ones”. In this scenario the philosophical ideals of Dionysos and Apollo materialize in the main character, who will battle against the decadence of progress and the oppression it generates. Jorge Carrión brilliantly narrates this tale about the search for identity and purpose set in a fictional world that is in many ways much like ours – from the alienation of the human being in a technological world, to the high price the “new ones” are willing to pay for the American dream.

Jorge Carrión’s book Bookshops (“Librerías”) is a survey of the history of bookstores all over the world, their relationships with writers and how they became the center pieces of culture and political resistance, making a trip through the history of the book trade from Ancient Rome to the 21st century. Nostalgic yet demystifying, this extraordinary book is the result of many readings, researches and visits to bookstores on the five continents, veering between cultural critique and travel chronicle. Librerías has come second in the prestigious Anagrama Award for Essays.

In his cleverly construed novel The Footprints (“Las huellas”), the author brings a number of essential topics like identity and human relationships together with moments in time and space, keeping the reader glued to the page. Reminiscent of Roberto Bolaño’s 2666, Las huellas features a suggestive plot and vivid characters that make us question the future of our planet.

He Who Is Thirsty (“El que tiene sed”) is a beautiful and painful novel that tells of a world bordering on madness: alcoholism, its hell and a breathtaking metaphysical adventure. How to satisfy the impossible, how to fight against the inexhaustible thirst that does not recognize origin, how to realize that life itself is the realization that happiness does not exist. These are the questions that torture Esteban Espósito, an alcoholic writer, in his lucid and drunken perception of reality. With lyricism and crudeness, the author manages to investigate the extremes of human degradation, the daily guilt, the humiliation and the outbursts of fate that push to the very limits of authenticity. The masterly prose of Abelardo Castillo transforms the experience into a true work of art where language acquires all the splendour of the shudder.

Esteban Espósito, a young writer with an alcohol problem and a penchant for theological inquiry, arrives in the city of Córdoba for a literary symposium he could not care less about. The city is as mythical as it is real, a place where time seems to behave in an inexplicable way, and where Esteban will spend thirty-six decisive hours of his life. October 1962. The imminence of war due to the missile crisis. This is the backdrop to Chronicle of an Initiate (“Crónica de un iniciado”). The love of Esteban and Graciela, the unforgettable figure of Santiago, the Rabelesian apparitions of Father Cherubini and the demonic professor Urba, the traps of benzedrine and sex, the mystery of a city founded cabalistically, make up an exciting surface plot under which lies the real one: Esposito’s journey of initiation that will connect him with other existential searches, with delirium, with the problem of time, with the meaning of life and death, recreating Faust’s pact with the devil for the sake of our arts.

Castillo manages the threads of uncertainty and gives us a monumental novel whose centre is an encrypted knowledge: “there is a secret order, the devil told me”, the protagonist of this chronicle confesses. Is Esteban going to sign the Pact? Does he even have a choice? In the tradition of Goethe and Thomas Mann, of Arlt and Marechal, the metaphysical depth and perfect architecture of “Crónica de un iniciado” simply dazzle.

The Gospel According to Van Hutten (“El Evangelio según Van Hutten”) is a bold and captivating revisionist reconstruction of the origins of the Christian era: conspiracies, detective intrigue and fantastical erudition.

How far are the gospels riddled with false claims, and how much important information about the Dead Sea scrolls has been censored? Were the Essenes a secret community split off from Orthodox Judaism, as well as the forerunners of Christianity and educators of Jesus Christ? Was Christ a mere saboteur of doctrines, rather than the son of God? During a vacation in La Cumbrecita, a middle-aged history professor discovers that the controversial archaeologist Estanislao Van Hutten, presumed dead, lives hidden from his detractors with a secret that could shake the most deeply rooted religious beliefs. The revelations made to the historian about the Holy Scriptures are based on the discovery of the ancient Dead Sea scrolls that call into question the official version of the figure of the Messiah.

Abelardo Castillo offers the reader the adventure of decoding a large palimpsest, while enjoying the escalating intrigue. An intelligent novel, original and solidly constructed upon the revelation of a truth: that to be does not need proof.

Despite his obligations as a writer, he never abandoned his profession as a doctor and always felt closest to the simple people from the region where he was born. He encouraged resistance to dictatorship and fascism not just in theory; he even suffered imprisonment for his convictions. Only seldom did Torga interrupt his secluded life in the university city of Coimbra to make public appearances. He was awarded numerous national and international prizes for his multifaceted and comprehensive oeuvre. He published a total of 40 volumes: novels, short-stories, plays, poetry and diaries. Miguel Torga’s oeuvre exudes the scent of earth, reveals a dominant love for concrete things, and portrays the simple people of northern Portugal, whose mysteries and myth gain entry intothe author’s lyrical and narrative work. Torga’s deliberately archaic style possesses the vividness and originality of the language of the farmers of northern Portugal. In its conciseness, his prose mirrors the ruggedness of their rural homeland.

Represented for Dom Quixote, Portugal.