Un any de divorciat

«Fonalleras writes with a sentimentality in the style of Salinger and a deconstruction or deep analysis in the style of Gombrowicz; the bourgeois characters of his tales (the individual and the family coming together as a whole) run in circles around his circumstances with a melancholy “for the days gone”, which is neither obsessive nor pathological and a tenderness for lost youth.» Estanislau Vidal-Folch

(A Year in the Life of a Divorcee) A Sunday afternoon with the kids. A week in Tossa, in a hotel. A trip to Rome with friends. Letters written and sent. Moments of hope, of desire, of loneliness. Photos of the kids laughing. Papers and hair bands around the flat. Mountains of unironed clothes. Insomnia… In Un any de divorciat Josep Mª Fonalleras, one of the most distinguished writers in the Catalan language, opens his heart in a moving and emotive tale, which is also humorous and easygoing: «As the singer put it: L’anno che sta arrivando, tra un anno passerà; e io mi sto preparando: è questa la novità. A year has passed, and that is unquestionable. One in which I’ve laboured over this account so many times without knowing whether it was optimistic or pessimistic, if it was a prelude or a consequence. We could say that the news is that I am more accustomed, if not prepared. And what nobody can deny me is that this year has passed and another is arriving.