Eva Baltasar

Eva Baltasar was trained as a teacher, but writing has always been her main occupation. She is presently one of the most acclaimed writers in the Catalan literary scene, and her name is also a powerful presence in international circles. In 2008, she published her first collection of poems, Laia (Columna), which was awarded the Miquel de Palol Prize. Since then, she has published ten more poetry collections, most of them prize-winning and including the titles Vida limitada (Limited Life, Món de Llibres, 2013), Animals d’hivern (Winter Animals, Edicions 62, 2016), and Neutre (Neutral, Bromera, 2017). In 2018 she published her first novel, Permagel (Club Editor; in English, Permafrost, And Other Stories, 2021), which was awarded the Llibreter Prize. The novel is the first part of a trilogy that explores the worlds of three women, featuring one in each volume and all three dealing with the frustrations and contradictions of modern life. Boulder (Club Editor and Penguin Random House, 2020; in English, Boulder, And Other Stories, 2022) and Mamut (Mammoth, Club Editor and Penguin Random House, 2022) are the other two titles.

Boulder was awarded the 2020 Òmnium Prize for Best Novel and was the first book written in Catalan to be listed for the prestigious International Booker Prize. Baltasar was also a finalist for the 2021 Prix Médicis in France, and a fragment of Permafrost was published by Granta in its number 154 which was devoted to writing about notions of loneliness and isolation. Translated into a dozen languages, Eva Baltasar’s books also focus on the body, describe various forms of uninhibited sexuality, and consider several forms of motherhood.