Translated from the Catalan by Peter Bush
ISBN-13: 978 1905583058
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Fast, precise, hilariously timed and mercilessly honest, the stories of Empar Moliner lay bare every pretension ever to have offered comfort to the middle class psyche. From the zeal of a mothers' group staging a world record breastfeeding attempt to couples role-playing their way into parenthood at a third world ‘adoption workshop’, every well-meaning fad and right-on gesture is brilliantly observed and astutely exposed.

Moliner’s sharpest weapons are saved for relationships, interrogating love for the competitive sport it really is. Here we meet partners so affectionate they only communicate through baby-talk, or lovers so addicted to arguing even acts of God can’t wean them off it. When a woman discovers she can teleport into the bodies of others and thereby sleep with any man she desires, we shouldn’t be surprised when ultimately sex itself becomes a turn-off. So delicate and fleet-footed are these stories, even the most single-minded protagonists win us over with a raucous charm that makes us love them and hate them in equal measure.

‘Deft and ingenious’ - Times Literary Supplement

‘With a fresh and direct language and great humour, Moliner takes the logic of small, everyday situations to their limit’
- Lift Stuttgart

About the Author

Empar Moliner has been a theatre and cabaret actress, and currently works as a writer and popular journalist. She entered the Catalan and Spanish literary scene in 1999 with her book, L' ensenyador de pisos que odiava els mims, a collection of short stories. Her first novel, Feli, esthéticienne, won the prominent Josep Pla Prize in 2000. T'estimo si he begut [I love you when I’m drunk], her second short fiction collection, was awarded the most influential Catalan literary prize, the Lletra d'Or, for 2004 and was voted the book of the year by La Vanguardia and El Periódico magazines.

About the Translator

Peter Bush is Vice-President of the International Federation of Translators (FIT). He has translated Juan Goytisolo's autobiography, Forbidden Territory and Realms of Strife, the narratives, Quarantine and The Marx Family Saga which was awarded the Instituto Cervantes, American Literary Translators Association, Valle-Inclán Prize for Literary Translation. He has also translated the work of Pedro Almodóvar, Carmen Boullosa, Juan Carlos Onetti and Senel Paz. He edited The Voice of the Turtle, an anthology of Cuban Stories. The American Literary Translators Association gave his translation of Luis Sepûlveda's The Old Man Who Read Love Stories a Best Translation Award for 1995.

Cover photograph by Elle Moss

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