Sara Mesa

The most devastating, intimate work to date from one of Spain's most prominent authors In The Family, Sara Mesa casts her unwavering gaze on the daily betrayals, small violences, and uneasy silences that shape a family from the inside out. With the restraint and clarity that have made her one of the most essential voices in Spanish literature, Mesa dismantles the illusion of domestic harmony, exposing how ideology and control curdle into lasting harm. The father--a secular idealist obsessed with morality, order, and transparency--rules the household with quiet severity. Journals are monitored, routines enforced, food restricted, personal space denied. His wife, deferential and vague, withdraws into silence. Their three children--and Martina, a niece adopted under murky circumstances--each respond to his system in their own way: Dami n, isolated and overweight, clings to small projects meant to please; Rosa, now a teacher, is a kleptomaniac; Aquilino, the youngest, attempts escape through reinvention and renaming himself; Martina tries to belong by suppressing her difference. Told through a mosaic of precise, time-jumping vignettes, The Family reveals how a family's core beliefs--about love, truth, freedom--can be twisted into tools of quiet domination. Mesa doesn't sensationalize; she illuminates. A confiscated diary. A forbidden chocolate bar. A child crying in the bathroom. This is a novel about the things left unsaid, the damage done in the name of principle, and the long aftershocks of childhood.

‘There are no secrets in this family!’ proclaims Damián, the father. A secular idealist obsessed with morality and order, he is blind to the cracks in his home’s foundations, the oppression that pervades it, and the elaborate fictions his wife and children devise to survive it. While he quotes Gandhi and expounds on the virtues of education, charity and thrift, the children retreat into humiliated compliance or seek freedom in the most dangerous of places. Told through a mosaic of interlinked family stories spanning decades, acclaimed Spanish author Sara Mesa turns her wry humour and steely gaze on the family as an institution: the ideologies that shape it, the silences that undermine it, and the authority you can never quite escape.

At Wybrany College, there are two kinds of student: the children of the rich and powerful, and the ‘Specials’ – recipients of a mysterious scholarship. Sealed off from the decaying world outside, the school promises safety, order and, for the Specials, the chance of a different life. But when one of them disappears, the illusion begins to crack. Hidden hierarchies shift. The line between protector and predator blurs.

Sonia meets Knut in an online literary forum and begins a unique long-distance relationship with him that becomes obsessive and derailed by excess. While her feelings toward him shift between attraction and repulsion, she can’t help but be fascinated by his unusual and perfectionist personality. He’s an intelligent young man of her same age who lives outside of all social norm and courts her through sumptuous stolen gifts, which include any book she could ever dream of. Her need to create distance when Knut becomes too absorbing, but also her unending curiosity, and a yearning to live experiences beyond a predictable existence, lead Sonia to begin a secret double life in which she will be trapped for several years without a chance to wipe the slate clean. In this unprecedented story, Sara Mesa’s concise and electrifying style not only exposes the dynamics of a disquieting, imbalanced romantic relationship, it gives shape to an elegant, non-prescriptive reflection on consumer society and theft; power and submission; desire, guilt, and sexuality; fantasy as an alternative to intimacy; the vulnerability of childhood; and the formation of a budding writer. With Scar, Sara Mesa consolidates herself as one of the most original literary voices of her generation. Published in 2015 in Spain and Latin America, Scar has been highly praised by literary critics and will be translated into Italian and Dutch. It won the 2015 Ojo Critico award, from Spain’s National Public Radio, for Spanish fiction authors under forty.

A claustrophobic story of desire and small town unease in the vein of Dogville or Coetzee’s Disgrace. On the heels of a cryptic mistake, Nat arrives in the rural village of La Escapa. She rents a small house from a negligent landlord, adopts a dog and begins to work on her first literary translation. But nothing in La Escapa is easy: her dog is ill-tempered and skittish, and mutual misunderstandings with her neighbours simmer below the surface. When conflict arises over repairs to her house, Nat receives an unusual offer – one that tests her sense of self and reveals her most unexpected desires. As Nat tries to understand her decision, the community of La Escapa comes together in search of a scapegoat. Now a feature film, directed by Isabel Coixet. Selected as the ‘Best Book of 2020’ by El País, La Vanguardia, El Cultural and El Correo. Shortlisted by El Mundo, Forbes, Elle, W Magazine and La Nueva España.

13-vuotias tyttö lintsaa koulusta ja viettää aikaa puistossa pensasaidan takaisessa piilossa. Hän tutustuu mieheen, joka pitää linnuista ja Nina Simonen musiikista. Tyttö on ”kohta 14-vuotias” ja saa siksi lempinimekseen Kohta. Koulussa häntä haukutaan Pullaposkeksi, mikä lisää hänen ahdistustaan ja viihtymättömyyttään ikäistensä parissa. Mies on ”54-vuotias: niin vanha!” ja on tämän vuoksi kutsumanimeltään Vanha. Vanhalla on kipeä menneisyys, johon sisältyy psykiatrisia hoitojaksoja. Yhteisön silmissä Kohtan ja Vanhan ystävyys on mahdoton. Kun tytön vanhemmat saavat tietää tytön lintsaamisesta ja oleilemisesta Vanhan seurassa, he puuttuvat tilanteeseen – ja kohta myös viranomaiset. Espanjalaisen Sara Mesan (s. 1976) romaani kysyy, onko yhteiskunnassa tilaa Kohtan ja Vanhan kaltaisten ihmisten epäsovinnaiselle, normeja rikkovalle ystävyydelle, joka tuo lämpöä ja lohtua kummankin elämään. Einari Aaltonen on suomentanut teoksen luovasti, alkuteoksen henkeä kunnioittaen. Sara Mesa syntyi Madridissa, mutta on viettänyt suuren osan elämästään Sevillassa. Hän on julkaissut tähänastisella kirjailijanurallaan toistakymmentä kaunokirjallista teosta, joilla hän myös voittanut useita palkintoja.

Årets Bedste Roman 2020i 4 spanske aviser: El País, La Vanguardia, El Cultural & El CorreoNat vil begynde forfra. Hun er taget til La Escapa, en lille landsbyflække, hvor hun lejer et gammelt forfaldent hus. Men det, der skulle blive en afsondret og stille tilværelse på landet, udvikler sig snart til et kalejdoskopisk drama - og en historie om kærlighed. Af en slags. Udlejeren er påtrængende, påkrævende og dukker i tide og utide uanmeldt op i huset. Og tyskeren beder Nat om lov til “at komme ind en stund”. Til gengæld vil han tætne hendes loft. Hippien ved, hvad der foregår. Pigen i butikken ved det. Alle ved det. Ingen siger det. Indtil den dag, Nats hund skamferer naboens lille datter. Tavshed, fortielser, manipulation, amorale, fordomme, tabuer, indforståetheder og krænkelser har hobet sig op, og landsbyen har langsomt snørret sig sammen om Nat. ”Det fascinerende ved Sara Mesa er hendes evne til at kortlægge den menneskelige tilstand gennem tabere og magtmisbrug, undertrykkende og isolerede steder og en langsom og stadig nedbrydning. Det er det, der gør hendes romaner så interessante: De er altid barske, bitre, ømme, mørke, ubehagelige og langsomme.”- La Razón”Mens jeg læste Sara Mesa, tænkte jeg på Camus, på Faulkner, på Vanære af Coetzee (hvis pessimisme ligner Sara Mesas i mere end en forstand).” - El País

From the author of the highly acclaimed Four by Four and Among the Hedges comes a collection of unsettling, captivating stories. The eleven stories in this collection approach themes of childhood and adolescence, guilt and redemption, power and freedom. There are children who resist authority and experience the process of growing up with shock, and loneliness; alienated young girls whose rebellion lies under the surface--subterranean, furious and impotent; people who are tormented--or not--by regret and doubt, addicted to feelings of culpability; men who take advantage of women and adults who exercise power over children with a disturbing degree of control; kids abandoned by their parents; the suicide of the elderly and the young; lives that hide crimes--both real and imagined. Eschewing cosmopolitanism in favor of the micro-world of her characters, Mesa depicts a reality that is messy and disturbing, on even the smallest scale of an individual life, a single family.

Casi, who is almost fourteen years old, has been skipping school and spending her days hidden among the hedges in a local park, listening to music and reading women's magazines. One day, Viejo, a fifty-year old man, stumbles upon her hiding place and the two strike up a friendship. He tells her about birds and Nina Simone, buys her soda and chips, and spends almost every day just talking with her. Despite their age gap, there's something childlike about Viejo that leads Casi to believe that he's not like the other men she's encountered, the "dangerous ones." But Viejo has a number of secrets in his past--all of which would be of grave concern to Casi's parents or any other adult who witnessed one of their rendezvous. As these secrets rise to the surface, the clock is ticking, with the weather growing cold and the school untangling Casi's set of lies, setting up a moment where something has to give. With spare, direct prose, Sara Mesa imbues these two outcasts with a great deal of warmth, raising questions about society's prejudices and assumptions, and creating a truly moving novel of an "inappropriate" relationship.

Set entirely at Wybrany College--a school where the wealthy keep their kids safe from the chaos erupting in the cities--Four by Four is a novel of insinuation and gossip, in which the truth about Wybrany's "program" is always palpable, but never explicit. The mysteries populating the novel open with the disappearance of one of the "special," scholarship students. As the first part unfolds, it becomes clear that all is not well in Wybrany, and that something more sordid lurks beneath the surface. In the second part--a diary written by an imposter who has infiltrated the school as a substitute teacher--the eerie sense of what's happening in this space removed from society, becomes more acute and potentially sinister. An exploration of the relationship between the powerful and powerless--and the repetition of these patterns--Mesa's "sophisticated nightmare" calls to mind great works of gothic literature (think Shirley Jackson) and social thrillers to create a unique, unsettling view of freedom and how a fear of the outside world can create monsters.

5 stikord:Venskab voksen/teenager, fordomme, ensomhed, tabuemne, pædofili Om bogen:Måneansigt er en kort roman om et venskab mellem den 14-årige pige Casi og en mand på 54 år. De møder hinanden i en park. Begge to er enspændere eller outsidere. Hun bliver mobbet i skolen pga. sit tykke ansigt, og fordi hun ingen kæreste har. Han er begejstret for fugle og Nina Simone. I sin fortælling om dette umage pars venskab, som i omverdenens øjne er upassende, bevæger forfatteren Sara Mesa sig på grænsen til det tilladelige. Hun udforsker det politisk ukorrekte, men formår at holde balancen. Læseren bliver hele tiden konfronteret med nogle moralske overvejelser, der er aktuelle i dag. Bogen er allerede oversat til otte sprog og har fået meget fine anmeldelser. Om forfatteren: Sara Mesa (f. 1976) er en af Spaniens lovende nye forfattere. Hun har udgivet i alt otte bøger, både romaner og noveller, af hvilke flere er prisbelønnede. Hun foretrækker at skrive om det, der foregår bag kulisserne og giver sine læsere lejlighed til at reflektere over menneskelige særheder, over hvad der er normalt og unormalt. Hun får meget fine anmeldelser og hendes roman Cicatriz (Ar) blev af de store spanske aviser koret til en af året bedste bøger i 2015.