Si no corro, caic

“He quotes, observes and cross-examines himself, but also makes claims, sets the record straight and qualifies. Si no corro, caic includes observation and introspection, reflections and flights of fancy, witty maxims and weighty judgments.” Vicenç Pagès Jordà, El Periódico

“Delightful pages of poems, aphorisms and musings on memory, death, sex, the passing of time, politics, women and Catalonia.” Lletres, diari Ara

“In a tone that at times harks back to the Nietzsche of Beyond Good and Evil and at others to the Joseph Joubert of On Life and Literature, De Ventós proffers these microessays, displaying an economy of style that has nothing further to prove or atone for. Written without a backwards glace, “posthumous papers” published, paradoxically, during the author’s lifetime.” Iván de la Nuez, El País

(Running Just to Keep Upright)  Xavier Rubert de Ventós always keeps a notebook to hand. Over a lifetime, he has filled hundreds of them, placing each and every one in a shoebox for safekeeping: a blue Guerrero, a pink Claire Fontaine, a maroon Enri, a Progreso graph paper notebook, and so on up to a total of 545. Now, with the help of Professor Gemma Casamajó, he has dug out these shoeboxes, opened them up and come to realise that they are full to the brim with on-the-spot impressions jotted down over the course of almost fifty years. The notebooks are filled with aphorisms, musings, poems, observations and obsessions on children, memory, death, sex, the passing of time, philosophy, travel, politics, women and Catalonia. These observations and aphorisms are priceless. With this in mind, hand-picked and ordered thematically, we offer the reader the very finest writings of an entire lifetime.