Freedom and Solitude: Eva Baltasar & Fernanda Trías

Eva Baltasar, Fernanda Trías, Martha Bátiz and Samantha Mateo

4:00pm

Friday, October 22, 2021

Two of the world’s most buzzworthy writers come together to discuss their first books to be translated into English, with interviewer Martha Batiz. Eva Baltasar, the #1 Catalan bestseller, introduces us to a bold lesbian narrator in Permafrost (translated to English by Julia Sanches), whose need for change sparks a journey across western Europe, dotted with lively inhibitions and hilarious observations. Uruguayan writer Fernanda Trías, one of the women writers forming the ”new Latin American Boom”, presents The Rooftop (translated to English by Annie McDermott). The story follows a woman who chooses to live closed off to the world, in a rundown apartment building, with only her rooftop as her recess to the world around her. Both books powerfully describe the desperate struggle between freedom and solitude through two very different female experiences.

English-Catalan Interpreter: Samantha Mateo

English captioning is available for this video. Please click the ‘CC’ button in the video toolbar to turn it on.

This event is generously supported by Institut Ramon Llull.

Conversation

Reading

Two of the world’s most buzzworthy writers come together to discuss their first books to be translated into English, with interviewer Martha Batiz. Eva Baltasar, the #1 Catalan bestseller, introduces us to a bold lesbian narrator in Permafrost (translated to English by Julia Sanches), whose need for change sparks a journey across western Europe, dotted with lively inhibitions and hilarious observations. Uruguayan writer Fernanda Trías, one of the women writers forming the ”new Latin American Boom”, presents The Rooftop (translated to English by Annie McDermott). The story follows a woman who chooses to live closed off to the world, in a rundown apartment building, with only her rooftop as her recess to the world around her. Both books powerfully describe the desperate struggle between freedom and solitude through two very different female experiences.

English-Catalan Interpreter: Samantha Mateo

English captioning is available for this video. Please click the ‘CC’ button in the video toolbar to turn it on.

This event is generously supported by Institut Ramon Llull.

Institut Ramon Llull logo

Conversation

Reading

Featured Authors

Eva Baltasar has published ten volumes of poetry to widespread acclaim. Her debut novel, Permafrost, received the 2018 Premi Llibreter from Catalan booksellers and was shortlisted for France’s 2020 Prix Médicis for Best Foreign Book. It is the first novel in a triptych which aims to explore the universes of three different women in the first person. The author lives a simple life with her wife and two daughters in a village near the mountains. Eva Baltasar's Festival appearance is generously supported by Institut Ramon Llull.

Read more about Eva Baltasar

Fernanda Trías

Fernanda Trías (Uruguay, 1976) is the author of three novels and two short story collections. Her stories have been included in anthologies in US, Uruguay, Peru, Germany and UK. The Rooftop was selected among the best books of the year by the El País and won the third prize of the Uruguayan National Literature Prize (2002). She received the BankBoston Foundation Prize for National Culture (2006) as well as the Unesco scholarship. In 2012 she received a full scholarship to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing at New York University. She currently lectures in Creative Writing and lives in Bogotá, Colombia.

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Martha Bátiz is an award-winning writer, translator, and professor of Spanish language in literature. She is the author of four books, including the story collection Plaza Requiem, winner of an International Latino Book Award, and the novella The Wolf’s Mouth, winner of the Casa de Teatro Prize. Born and raised in Mexico City, she lives in Toronto.

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Samantha Mateo is a freelancer and an emerging translator of Catalan literature. She graduated from Columbia University in 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in linguistics. After working in the business translation sector for a couple of years, she attended the University of Chicago where she graduated with a master's degree in Humanities specializing in Catalan and Translation Studies. She is a member of the Third Coast Translator's Collective and volunteers with organizations relating to literary translation and Catalan language-learning. She currently resides in her hometown, Chicago.

Read more about Samantha Mateo