RIGHTS LIST - Sandra Bruna Agencia Literaria

RIGHTS LIST

“There is no frigate 

like a book to take 

us lands away...” 

Emily Dickinson 

Sandra Bruna 

Founder and Director 

ANYS / AÑOS / YEARS 

2001 · 2011 

Our traverse is a dream, coming true with the endeavour 

and every-day work of my team. Our intention 

for each book is to find a place for it, the best 

for each of our titles, and to help it travel abroad 

once it has been published in its original language. 

Sandra started working in a literary agency from a very young age and combined Philology university studies 

with her work at the agency. After ten years experience she decided to embark on a solo adventure, and she 

started up her own agency in 2001. The beginnings were slow, but ten years after Sandra Bruna Agencia Literaria 

has grown to currently become a consolidated agency with 150 Spanish and Catalan authors, and a list of more 

than 30 publishers and agents represented for the Spanish and Portuguese speaking markets, both of adult and 

children and YA titles. 

We strongly believe that every book has a reader 

and, therefore, every book can find a publisher who 

will become keen on it and will be willing to share 

his/her enthusiasm with readers. This is why this 

catalogue is an invitation for you to travel to other 

worlds of different colours, and to choose which frigate 

to get on with us so that we can share feelings, 

emotions and, above all, good readings. Join in! 

Sandra Bruna 

Patricia Sánchez 

Agent – Adult and Crossover Titles 

Patricia started working at Tusquets Editores, a bit by chance, 

at the age of 21. She obtained her degree in English Philology 

by the Universitat de Barcelona, while she learnt the byways of 

the acquisition and cession of rights at Tusquets’ Rights Department. 

She streghthened very specially the promoting tasks 

of the Spanish language authors among foreign publishers. 

Following to this 10-year experience, Patricia worked as an 

editor at Paidós, Grupo Planeta, for 2 years. She joined Sandra 

Bruna in June 2010, though she has always felt close to the 

agency through the friendship she and Sandra have kept ever 

since they got started in this spellbinding sector. 

Rachele Rabbino 

Agent – Children and YA Titles 

Grown up surrounded by books since she was a little girl (her 

mother had a bookshop specialized in children literature), she 

has been able to fuel her love for stories and writing. Before 

graduating with honors with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Media/Publishing, 

she experienced the world of communication 

and the organization of events, including ethical and social 

ones. She spent a semester at SUNY New Paltz (USA) where 

she learnt more about the American mass-media. However, 

she finally found her place at Sandra Bruna Literary Agency. 

From October 2009 her enthusiasm and energy are channeling 

more and more in the area that always attracted her most: 

children and young adult books. 

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Enrique Alcat 

Enrique Alcat is a consultant specialized in executive training, corporate communications, and crisis management. He has given more than 

400 seminars and has trained more than 5000 executives. He has also leaded more than 200 communication campaigns for different types of 

companies, and has participated in the management and strategies to take companies out of a crisis. He is lecturer at the Universidad de Navarra 

and the Escuela de Administración de Empresas in Barcelona. He has published the books Y ahora ¿qué? - Claves para gestionar una crisis y 

salir fortalecido (Empresa Activa, 2005), a bestseller, and Seis recetas para superar la crisis (Alienta, 2009). 

NF F 

¡INFLUYE! (Be Influential!) 

To persuade, to convince, to manipulate? Success depends on many factors but the ability to influence 

is the most powerful tool for achieving any goal. You can learn how to be influential. This book presents 

effective and powerful techniques that will help you to achieve your goals both in your personal and 

your professional life. Communication is the tool for it. Alcat examines why good leaders, powerful 

people and media icons get to be successful. Influence is forged rigorously, methodically and following 

a strategy according to which we plan in advance the goals we want to obtain, by means of the language 

of our actions, our attitude, and different personal and professional qualities, ranging from 

seduction, to a brand image, to motivational techniques, to emotional intelligence and communication 

skills. Learn how to delve into the difficult art of persuasion: be influential! 

Rights sold to: 

Alienta (Spanish)

Margarida Aritzeta 

Margarita Aritzeta has published several works of fiction: novels, for adults and young readers, black novels and thrillers. One of the most 

interesting things about her work is that she combines fictions with true backgrounds, so that her stories always take place between what is 

real and what is imaginary. She is a lecturer in Literary Theory at Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Tarragona). 

Some of her most important recent novels are: L’herència de Cuba, (1997), the true story of some emigrants from Aragon set in Cuba in 1925) 

El llegat dels filisteus (2005), a political thriller set in Barcelona and the western Sahara, in search of the ancient civilisation of the Philistines; 

and Aigües de tardor (2006), a story of love and violence. Her most recent novel is La maleta sarda. 


Columna (Catalan) 

Edizioni Il Maestrale (Italian) 

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LA MALETA SARDA (The Sardinian Suitcase) 

Manu Uriarte, who works in the old book business, travels to Perpignan to meet one of his clients, 

Torrentà, for he has a most singular and valuable volume dated from 1502 published by the famous 

typographer Hans Rosembach. However, Torrentà doesn’t turn up, and Manu goes to his home. He 

finds Torrentà murdered, the house in a mess. Frightened, he fetches some books and the keys of the 

house, and runs away. 

A call from Torrentà’s lawyer, a suitcase full of documents written in Sardinian, and a photograph of an 

enigmatic man called Malvaggio, will lead Manu to a journey to Sardinia, where he will find out that his 

client kept a mysterious secret. The more he pulls the thread, the less it gets unravelled… 

La maleta sarda is the story of the search for an incunable and whoever dares to kill in order to get it. 

But parallel to this main plot run details, characters, multiple intrigues that belong to the main intrigue, 

a rich vocabulary and a cared for language, build up a complex architecture that aims at creating 

a feeling of the wold. And at the reader being able to recreate it in all its dimension.

Mireia Arrate 

Mireia Arrate (Eibar, 1946) lives between Barcelona and the Basque Country. She graduated in Law by the Universitat de Barcelona, and worked 

actively for an effective equality of rights between men and women, as member of the women’s commission at the National Board of Lawyers. 

In 2005 she decided to devote to writing exclusively. El año de los mil cafés is her first novel. 


Edebé (Spanish) 

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EL AÑO DE LOS MIL CAFÉS (The Year of The Thousand Coffees) 

“We never know someone well enough”. Laura’s world seems to collapse like a house of cards when 

she discovers that John, her husband, the father of her stepchildren, has been sleeping with Neus, a 

much younger girl, the wife of his partner and friend. She decides to break up with her life as a perfect 

wife and mum (though the children she looks after are not even hers) to start a new life of her own and 

to devote more time to her job. The reflections Laura makes about couple life, about self-sacrifice as 

opposite to our personal wishes, about maternity, about the relationship with men, are also those that 

many women tell about in their conversations with friends, and the situations in which she finds herself 

involved will be considerably familiar to us. 

El año de los mil cafés is an urban and contemporary novel that portraits a group of upper-class 

couples professionally successful who, despite their perfect appearance, do also make mistakes; their 

initial stability will crumble in such a way that they will make a new start in their lives, avoiding the 

daily carelessness out of habit. A portrait of the world of couples where everyone has things to hide...

Federico Axat 

Federico Axat was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1975. He is a civil engineer and worked for six years in Central and North America before 

committing himself to a full time writing career. His first novel, Benjamin, has been published in 2010 by Suma de Letras, an imprint of Grupo 

Santillana. He was soon and widely compared to Stephen King by hundreds of readers and fans at social nets like Facebook, something that 

he receives with disbelief, demureness and utter gratitude. So far he has written four novels, all of them set in USA, both in fictional and real 

scenarios described in such detail that is impossible to tell that they were actually written by a foreign writer. His stories work at different levels, 

with plot twists and a special care in the conception of endings, something really appreciated by readers. Some of his ending remind of movies 

like The Sixth Sense or The Others. 

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BENJAMIN 

Ben is nine years old, is furious with her mother and fantasizes with the idea of leaving home. 

Overwhelmed, he sneaks into the darkness of the attic: a forbidden and unexplored place that has 

fallen into disuse years ago. 

After an exhaustive search in the vast woods of Carnival Falls, he is officially considered a lost child, 

and as the days goes by, his family begins to accept the inevitable. Ben is dead. 

However, he is there, above their heads. Through tiny holes he can spy them, listen to their intimate 

conversations, discover their darkest secrets and find out how, slowly but undoubtedly, their lives 

begin to resume ... without him 

What do your loved-ones do when they are alone? 


Suma (Spanish) 

Sperling & Kupfer (Italian)

Raquel Barco 

Raquel Barco, who published her first novels as Jezz Burning, was born in Cordoba but lived all her life in Santa Coloma de Gramenet 

(Barcelona). She worked as an administrative but started to write very young. However, just some years ago she began to publish her stories in 

the web. In 2006 she won the first place of the Terciopelo Award with her novel Al llegar la noche, a paranormal romance. Now with four books 

published and being distributed also in Mexico, she has turned into the most renowned author of romantic novels of the Spanish scene. Her 

most recent title is La raza número 4, an ambitious historical thriller, published by Roca Editorial. 

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LA RAZA NÚMERO 4 (The Race Number 4) 

The lives of Abel Simmons and Eve Swan cross for the second time when Abel’s father is murdered and 

in his pocket there is a picture of Eve. Abel ignores the advice of Nick Parker, the lieutenant in charge 

of the case and decides to investigate on his own. For that he will need the help of the woman who 

hates him and consideres him the responsible for her five years in prison. But Peter was hiding more 

secrets in the basement of his house: documents and photographs that show that everything is much 

more complex than it may seem. Unsolved deaths, legends and myths about Atlantis and Hyperborea, 

maps as ancient as the Piris Reis or Oronteus Fineaus, lost civilizations and two ancient artifacts that 

have been sought throughout history, are only a fraction of the numerous pieces of the puzzle that they 

must fit together to resolve the reason of their existence and that of the entire planet.The survival of 

the fourth race is at stake. The countdown has begun... 


Roca Editorial (Spanish)

Iolanda Batallé 

Iolanda Batallé was born in Barcelona in 1971 and has lived in England, Argentina, Morocco, South Africa, USA and the Baix Empordà (Catalonia). 

She graduated in English Philology at the universities of Barcelona and Southampton, she is a journalist and has an MBA from ESADE and the 

University of California Berkeley. She has worked since 1990 in various media: “The Observer”, “Periódico de Catalunya”, “Diari de Girona”, “RAC1” 

and “Com Radio” among others. Her professional career has always moved in the fields of journalism, literature and education. She currently lives 

in Barcelona, where she works as Editorial Director of an imprint of children’s books. La memòria de les formigues is her first novel. 

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LA MEMÒRIA DE LES FORMIGUES (The Memory of Ants) 

Trying to understand the purpose and meaning of life, and explaining the world to her daughter: this 

is what Joana does while she combs the sand with her beach-cleaning tractor, picking up secrets 

the sea brings to her and writing her life down in a notebook. She has left a prestigious but hectic job 

for this as cleaner at the beach, and the tractor represents the way she puts a stop to her life, during 

which she will clean both the sand and her past. In this way the author hints at the possibility to look 

at our life from a different perspective, at a slower pace, keeping away from the rhythms imposed by 

this world we live in. 


Ara Llibres (Catalan)

Jaume Benavente 

Jaume Benavente was born in Barcelona in 1958, though he spent most of his childhood in Brasil, and graduated in Fine Arts with a specialisation 

in painting. Jaume has written short stories and novels, both for adults and the young readers. He is also author of a ccollection of poems. 

Jaume Benavente is considered a “restless and original author” (A. M. Gil, La Vanguardia), with a “very personal voice and a notable sense for 

simplicity and expressive restraint” (J. J. Isern, Avui). His books have been translated into Spanish (Masurca de Praia, Llums a la costa, El 

quadern de Nicolaas Kleen) and into Italian (Camps de Lava, Viatge d’hivern a Madeira). 

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EL QUADERN DE NICOLAAS KLEEN (The Notebook of Nikolaas Kleen) 

Marja Batelaar is a young, shy and lonely detective of the Homicide Section at Amsterdam. Born in an 

educated family of Jewish origin, she lives alone in a bohemian quarter of the city. One rainy morning 

she is commissioned the investigation of a woman’s death in a hostel and the missing of her partner. 

Without any clues, Marja’s intuition leads her to a world full of shadows and criminal interests, where 

the cosmopolitan and well-off environment and the dealing with human organs mixes with Marja’s 

own ghosts, and a feeling that death lies in wait for her. 

El quadern de Nicolaas Kleen is the first of four novels featuring Marja Batelaar. With them Jaume 

Benavente explores the crime soul and draws a universe full of worrying characters, fugitives through 

a misty Europe. Through black novel and suspense with a literary style, Benavente gives us another 

view of contemporary Europe. 



Roca (Spanish)

Jaume Benavente 

Jaume Benavente was born in Barcelona in 1958, though he spent most of his childhood in Brasil, and graduated in Fine Arts with a specialisation 

in painting. Jaume has written short stories and novels, both for adults and the young readers. He is also author of a ccollection of poems. 

Jaume Benavente is considered a “restless and original author” (A. M. Gil, La Vanguardia), with a “very personal voice and a notable sense for 

simplicity and expressive restraint” (J. J. Isern, Avui). His books have been translated into Spanish (Masurca de Praia, Llums a la costa, El 

quadern de Nicolaas Kleen) and into Italian (Camps de Lava, Viatge d’hivern a Madeira). 

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LLUMS A LA COSTA (Lights Along the Coast) 

With the excuse to finish a translation, Celia Vidal, a writer from Barcelona, decides to leave her city to 

spend the winter in Lisbon. There she meets an old professor from Madeira, Eusebio Sena, a charming 

and singular man who used to be a political activist during the Salazar’s dictatorship. From the voices 

of this former teacher and this writer, both foreigners in Lisbon, the author skilfully recreates the lost 

world of Sena in Madeira, brings along characters and ghosts that crossed his eventful life, and shows 

the reader the doubts and hopes of Celia Vidal, while a strange feeling hangs over this story of political 

betrayals and unfulfilled loves, set in a Lisbon whose magic, magnificently captured by the author, will 

fascinate the reader. 



Bruguera (Spanish)

Juan Bosco 

Juan Bosco was born in La Orotava, Tenerife, in 1973. For many years he devoted himself to music, on stages of the Canary Islands and 

the peninsula and alternating his musical work with the literature. Away from the stage he turns all his attention to literature, entering the 

publishing world with a first work entitled El tercer latido (Destino, 2009), in collaboration with Marta Vila and targeted at the young reader, a 

commissioned work for the institutional project Alianza de Civilizaciones. Graduated in Philosophy and occasional lecturer in different cycles, 

he works hard the words in a constant search for the meaning of things. He has numerous literary awards in poetry. His most recent title is 

La lista, a historical novel. 

IMAGE NOT 

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Principal de los Libros (Spanish) 

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LA LISTA (The List) 

1940. The terror regime established in Spain after the Civil War starts the gruesome military plans 

drawn up by the rebels before the 1936 coup. The goal: to exterminate all opposition and erase forever 

the memory of the 2nd Republic. While the population on the peninsula faces the war’s terrible calamities 

and is submitted to General Franco, the plot focuses on what happened at that time in a town 

of the island of Tenerife, La Orotava, traditionally linked to the Spanish court, where the shadow of 

dictatorship crushes people, condemning them to silence and, in many cases, to death. 

A great post-war novel, with the particularity of the unknown setting of the Canary Islands, with many 

parallel stories that converge around the main plot: the position of the clergy as opposed to the progressive 

ideas of some of its members; the description of a society close to feudal, like the one of 

Tenerife in the middle of the 20th century; the romance between Rosa, the daughter of the Count, and 

Lucas, the progressive parish priest. Action, love, progress, social change and history in a perfectly 

crafted book.

Joan Bruna with Francesc Miralles 

Joan Bruna was born in Barcelona, in 1947. He is a Marketing specialist and a reading lover, fact that has allowed him to be a reader for a 

literary agency. Being fond of history and particularly of the feudal times, he wrote El legado de Judas, his first novel together with Francesc 

Miralles. Miralles (Barcelona, 1968) has a degree in German Philology and worked as a publisher. A very prolific writer, he has published essays 

addressed to school readers, self-help books, as well as novels for young and adults, some of which awarded with renowed literary prizes. 



Martínez Roca (Spanish) 

Récord (Portuguese / Brazil) 

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EL LLEGAT DE JUDES (Judas’ Legacy) 

Andreas, a humble tourist guide, is hired by an enigmatic woman called Solstice Bloomberg to go with 

her to Jerusalem. Once there, Solstice will reveal him the real cause of her trip to the holy city: to recover 

Judas Iscariot’s old will, handwritten by the apostle himself, before it comes into light, revealing fantastic 

facts. One of these tells that from the thirty coins Judas received to betray Jesus, only seven remained, and 

passed through generations along History to become powerful talismans. 

Andreas has no choice but to collaborate with Solstice to find the coins, which were widely spread. 

The only clues they will have will be each of the the seven parts of Judas’ legacy, which explain where they 

are hidden and how to recover them. United States, France or Japan will be some of the sceneries they 

will have to visit to find them, but of course neither Andreas nor Solstice are the only ones who want the 

treasure… Someone else is searching for them, and they will undoubtedly use all the necessary resources 

– including murder – to get it first, in this race against the clock. A novel riddled with secrets, enigmas and 

mysteries, full of action and dangers that will show us a new and disturbing view about Judas.

Jezz Burning 

Jezz Burning (Cordoba) began writing in adolescence, but it was not until a few years ago when she decided to share her stories with readers, 

publishing regularly in different virtual pages of the leaders of the romantic genre. In 2006, she decided to write the first book in the Licos 

Saga, Al caer la noche, to apply for the Romantic Novel Price by Terciopelo, which won her the first prize. El secreto de la noche is the second 

installment of the Licos series, Noche de ofrenda is the third, and Conspiración en la noche is the the fourth and most recent work. 

In addition to her passion for writing, she spends her leisure time enjoying literature, and fantasy and horror films. Since November 2009 Jezz 

Burning is the president of ADARDE, the Association of Romantic writers of Spain, created to defend and promote the romantic novel. 


Terciopelo (Spanish) 

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CONSPIRACIÓN EN LA NOCHE (Conspiracy in the Night - Book #4 in the Licos Saga) 

Following to winning the Romantic Novel Price granted by imprint Terciopelo (Roca Editorial), the following 

books in the saga reached the first positions in the Nielsen lists of book sales, thus becoming 

one of the most solid authors of Romantic writing both in Spain and Latin America. The fourth instalment 

comes in 2010, together with the pocketbook reprints of the previous titles, featuring the most 

charismatic of his characters, the one that has spurred her readers most due to his huge mystery. 

This is a book that will undoubtedly revolutionize the general vision of the romantic genre thanks to 

its dynamism, the atypical behaviour of its characters, and the new techniques applied, not found to 

date in this kind of works, thus continuing and developing Burning’s vanguardist and innovative style. 

With an extraordinary control of her characters and an originality hardly found within the genre, Jezz 

Burning has created a world parallel to ours where lycanthropes live secretly alongside humans and 

fight their own battles. With a Western tone about them, her books are full of action, myths, passion, 

suspense and humour, written with a direct and visual style.

Lluís Busquets i Grabulosa 

Lluís Busquets i Grabulosa, writer, teacher and journalist, was born in Olot, Catalonia, in 1947, and works in the fields of literature, teaching 

and journalism. 

He has published numerous cultural and research articles in different publications, promoted school magazines, shown a keen interest in 

language and imagery, coordinated two collections for young readers, published letters, anthologies, as well as works of theory, literary history 

and methodology of textual analysis. As a journalist, he has contributed to various types of media. As a writer, apart from several collections of 

poems, he has published several collections of short stories and novels aimed at different readers. 


Ara Llibres (Catalan) 

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CARTA AL PAPA D’UN CREIENT CRÍTIC (A Letter to the Pope from a Critic Believer) 

After the visit of the Pope Benedict XVI to Spain, Lluís Busquets I Grabulosa – author of many renowned 

essays and novels – wrote a letter with the aim to make the critical voices in the Church to be 

listened. The author affirms that the ruling classes (and also the Church) are afraid of real message 

from Jesus, and he exposes the double and terrible division inside the Church, between a conservative 

hierarchy and another more open to the new times. Busquets also shows us that the eagerness for 

money has always positioned the Roman curia against life and world poverty, and exposes how it has 

been blinded by machismo and sexuality, from the celibate to priests’ pedophilia. Busquets concludes 

with his theory that the Pope should distinguish between a temporary leading task, which he should 

entrust to experts, and his inherent spiritual task, which would imply to leave definitely the Vatican to 

keep travelling around the world just like Jesus of Galilee did, visiting every community of believers 

and every particular church.

Bea Cabezas 

Bea Cabezas (Barcelona, 1976) has a degree in Journalism and has worked in the weekly “El Temps” and in the newspaper “Avui”, where she 

published her first fiction writings in the column “Bleecker and Broadway, el dietari de Joan Bois”, from New York. 

She has studied literary training related to the theatre world through Sala Beckett and through the play-writing at the Obrador. Her first novel 

El monestir de les ombres was published in 2008 by Alisis. 



F 

LA CIUTAT VERTICAL (The Vertical City) 

New York, 15th December 1929. Daniel reaches the tiny apartment of his father (and his childhood) 

at the Lower East Side, after eighteen years, to find him dead. Why had his father asked him to come 

to see him after so many years? At his father’s desk, Daniel finds the manuscript of his memories. 

Through its pages, Daniel will learn of her father’s arrival from Barcelona back in 1880, how he began 

working, how he became a pickpocket and he discovered love for the first time, how he met his wife 

and then abandoned her. Daniel will witness how Joan became an adult as an outlaw at the time of 

the raising of the big skycrappers that now give shape to the landscape of the city, vertical, like the 

genealogical line between parents and sons. Daniel will discover his own past, too. A past he has tried 

hard to forget, by adopting the surname of his mother’s second husband, Greyman. This identity has 

gained him to accede to an upper-class life, to obtain an Architecture Degree at Harvard, and a job as 

assistant to the creators of the Empire State. But one cannot erase the past, and Daniel will have to 

face his own past in order to be able to rewrite his present and to live the future in peace with himself.

Victòria Cardona 

Victòria Cardona is a teacher and writer and has specialized in family counseling. She is a lecturer on educational topics in associations and 

schools for social works of Fundación La Caixa and a contributor to radio. Cardona also publishes articles about education regularly in many 

portals on the web. She has actively participated in numerous conferences as an expert in adolescence, authority, responsibility and freedom, 

reconciliation of work and family, school failure and communication conflicts of marriage, among other topics. She is a moderator of parent 

education programs organized by the government of Catalonia. She has been a municipal councilor in the area of Education and Public Health 

of the District Sarriá-Sant Gervasi and director of Aica (“Art and culture for women”). Victòria Cardona is author of several titles, among which 

Ensenyar a viure (Pòrtic 2006, Grup 62) (Labutxaca 2010, Grup 62), Som avis (Mina 2008, Grup 62), Conciliar la vida familiar (Styria, 2008) and 

Qui mana aquí...? (Pòrtic 2010, Grup 62). 

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CONCILIAR LA VIDA FAMILIAR (Balancing Family Life) 

How can we reconcile different, and sometimes conflicting, points of view, of grandparents, parents and grandchildren? 

What guidelines must be followed by young parents to preserve the autonomy of opinion at home without 

interference and impositions that distort? Which should be the attitude of parents and grandparents when faced 

with the adolescence of the youngest in the house? Can grandparents play their role in the family taking care of 

grandchildren, and still act in freedom? How should we adults, as parents or grandparents, pass on to the ones 

we love our biographical memory, values and cultural roots? Victoria Cardona answers these and other questions 

in simple language and with reflections and anecdotes backed by her experience. This book is a proposal that will 

help you to be happy in your daily life, your marriage and family relations. 


Styria (Spanish) 

Mina (Catalan) 


Pòrtic (Catalan) 

QUI MANA AQUÍ? (Who Is In Charge Here?) 

How can we get to educate our children without harming their autonomy and freedom”, “do we have enough 

authority over them?”, “do we establish a climate of trust that facilitates communication and agreements and 

covenants?”. Victòria Cardona gives answers once more, with reflections and anecdotes, lived throughout 

her professional and personal lives, that help us live the relationship between parents and children with 

confidence and optimism. Victòria Cardona avoids rigid indoctrination and offers several clues to enter with 

respect in a world of accelerating change and general disorientation.

Maria Català 

Maria Català (Mataró, 1949) studied teaching, a profession that she continues and, together with the education of her four children, has spent 

most of her time. Behind this open, travelling, active and enterprising woman hides a person with a sensitivity and responsiveness capable of 

capturing the thoughts, needs and desires of the people around her. Far from being complacent, her restless spirit has led her to a constant 

search for deepening the knowledge of other cultures. Also, her curiosity has driven her to travel around the world, giving her the opportunity 

to establish contact with the most diverse forms of understanding life. Moreover, these qualities of a constant observation of the environment 

and a passion for reading are what led her to writing Urpes de seda, a novel that offers a very particular view of the intricate mechanisms that 

regulate personal relationships. 

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URPES DE SEDA (Claws of Silk) 

Mar Castells, rich heiress of silk spinning mill Punto y Seda, is not and neither wants to be a conventional 

girl. She walks alone in the cemetery, and expects the arrival of a Prince Charming to be engaged in 

body and soul. The passion that rules her life will end up destroying it ... But it is not the first time this 

has happened in this family. The rigid structures of the twentieth century Catalonia and the ambition of 

those who yearn for the good fortune of the Castells suffocate anyone who dares to get out of the way. 

A story about strong women with complicated lives and unrequited loves, written with a remarkable 

fondness for a simple and stylish writing. A novel with which the author sets out in a journey that will 

surely take her very far. 


Amsterdam Llibres (Catalan)

Andreu Claret 

A journalist, born in Ax-les-Thermes (France, 1946) within a republican family in the exile, Andreu Claret started to work under Franco’s regime 

in magazine Cambio-16. He was delegate for Agencia Efe in Subsaharan Africa, Central America and Agencia Efe´s Director in Catalonia. He 

published many articles about international economics and society and he taught journalism at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. He has been 

Director of the Mediterranea European Institute (IEMed) and Director of External Relationships of Grupo Agbar. Currently, he is manager of the 

Fundación Anna Lindh for the intercultural dialogue, settled in Alexandria. El secret del Brigadista is his first novel. 

F 

EL SECRET DEL BRIGADISTA (The Secret of the Brigadist) 

In 1938, a North American member of an international brigade disappears during the Battle of the 

Ebro, near La Fatarella. Seventy years later, Barbara Stein, his grand-daughter, travels to that place to 

find out how he died. Her aim is truncated by a mysterious murder in which she is involved and which 

brings about old and traumatic memories from the Republic and war times. Having to face this new 

situation, Barbara finally finds out the fascinating story of friendship, mystery and betrayal that her 

grandfather lived with a boy from La Fatarella. 



Planeta (Spanish)

Mercè Conangla with Jaume Soler 

Mercè Conangla is a psychologist and a nurse. She has specialized in emotional education, leadership skills training and verbal communication. 

She is a teacher and a consultant in the teaching and health sectors, working with various universities, hospitals and institutions as a lecturer, 

teacher and working group coach. Jaume Soler has studied psychology and taken various Master’s Degrees and postgraduate courses in 

this field. He is a well-established professional with more than thirty years experience as a consultant specializing in developing teams and 

human resources in companies in the health and industrial sectors. Conangla and Soler co-founded the Fundació ÀMBIT, a Centre for Personal 

Development in Barcelona. Together they have published the books La ecología emocional, Aplícate el cuento, and Donar temps a la vida, as 

well as the trilogy Juntos pero no revueltos. La ecología emocional para el siglo XXI is their most recent title. 

IMAGE NOT 

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Raval Edicions (Catalan) 

Planeta (Spanish) 

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LA ECOLOGÍA EMOCIONAL PARA EL SIGLO XXI (Emotional Ecology for the 21st Century) 

When we feel blocked, unhappy, resentful or angry, we let these feelings out, so that our personal 

relationships are undermined and our actions increase the amount of suffering and destruction in our 

world. On the other hand, when we manage our emotional world in an ecological fashion and learn 

the art of positively transforming our emotions, we become more balanced and our actions aim at 

caring for and respecting the others. Which factors cause suffering and imbalance in our lives? Can 

we prevent them? What is the point of life if we are incapable of fulfilling ourselves, having positive 

relationships with others and enjoying, valuing, respecting and improving our world? The answers to 

these questions can be found in this book. 

Based on the successful La ecología emocional, La ecología emocional, La ecología emocional para 

el siglo XXI brings to the reader all the concepts from Mercè Conangla and Jaume Soler’s previous 

books, adapted to a current and more challenging reality.









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CORAZÓN QUE SIENTE, OJOS QUE VEN (What the Heart Grieves, the Eyes See) 

Life is a wonder. However, we do not explore the opportunities it gives us at its maximum. Do you want 

to wait until it is too late to start enjoying it? 

Corazón que siente, ojos que ven is “an awakening book”, a warning and a challenge at the same time. 

It invites us to reflect and ask ourselves if we love, create, and definitely, live well enough. It depends 

on us to live life to the fullest. 

In this book, the authors propose us to connect with our emotionally renewable, sustainable and clean 

energies and to avoid everything that can be toxic or contaminant. Only by acting this way we will be 

able to enjoy our time and dream, play, learn, take some risks… live! 


Zenith (Spanish)









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ECOLOGÍA EMOCIONAL (Emotional Ecology) 

When we feel blocked, unhappy, resentful or angry, we let these feelings out, so that our personal 

relationships are undermined and our actions increase the amount of suffering and destruction in our 

world. On the other hand, when we manage our emotional world in an ecological fashion and learn 

the art of positively transforming our emotions, we become more balanced and our actions aim at 

caring for and respecting the others. Which factors cause suffering and imbalance in our lives? Can 

we prevent them? What is the point of life if we are incapable of fulfilling ourselves, having positive 

relationships with others and enjoying, valuing, respecting and improving our world? When will we become 

aware that if we do not change our unjust, uncaring, imbalanced and selfish personal and social 

model, we are condemned to individual and collective destruction? Which alternative model will allow 

us to achieve greater harmony both internally and externally? Find many of the answers in this book. 


RBA (Spanish) 

Bertrand (Portuguese) 

Best Seller (Brazilian)

Anna Crusafont 

Anna Crusafont was born in Sabadell, in 1937. She has a degree in Pharmacy and has studies on Catalan Philology. She has participated in some 

narrative workshops in the Ateneu Barcelonès, in Barcelona. She has worked in some newspapers and magazines from Sabadell. 

She has participated in some short stories volumes written by women. She has published Venim de fa millions i millions d’anys, published by 

Abadia de Montserrat in 2003; Fets pols, published by Editorial Montflorit in 2004; and Rellotge d’arena, published in 2007. Her most recent 

novel, Isola Bella, was published in 2009 and has already been translated into Spanish, Greek and Portuguese. 



Roca (Spanish), Livanis (Greek) 

Quid Novi (Portuguese) 

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ISOLA BELLA 

Isola Bella, Italy. Lake Maggiore. Stresa. Borromee Islands. The rain. A meeting… After her son left 

home to get married and have a baby, Julia, a fifty year old housewife with a Literature degree, realizes 

for the first time that her life has been of little importance. Unexpectedly, she finds some notebooks 

she wrote when she was a teenager. In reading them, Julia discovers a promised and wonderful future 

that she hasn’t been able to achive. This feeling will lead her to take a decision: to break her marriage 

and travel to Stresa, a little, beautiful and calm place in the North of Italy, where she wishes to find 

herself again and think about her new future. Llorenç, a mature handsome man and an experienced 

theatre actor, is temporarily living in Stresa. He is staying at a friend’s house, a calm and warm place 

to write the book that he has been commissioned: an account of his experience as a theatre actor. Julia 

and Llorenç will meet each other with a different past, a different life. She arrives. He is leaving. An 

unexpected encounter that will change the rest of their lives.

Silvia Damiano 

Silvia Damiano is a speaker, trainer, coach and author of Engage me, director of About my Brain, as well as Program Director at Mt Eliza 

Executive Education, Melbourne Business School (1st in the ranking of Asia Pacific). Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she has lived in Sydney 

for the past 15 years. She studied Sciences and Sociology at the University of Buenos Aires. She has lived in four countries and cultures in 

the southern hemisphere including Chile and South Africa, focused on personal leadership development and team organizational culture 

change and how to improve human behavior for greater commitment and better results in the business environment. Her work in the area of 

organizational learning earned her the first prize for Excellence in Education, awarded by the Institute for Learning and Training Australia (AITD) 

in 2006 and finalist in 2010 in the category of Organizational Effectiveness for her work on the commitment and her book Engage me. 

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ENGAGE ME 

Have you ever wondered what engages people at work? Have you ever explored and shared with your 

boss what engages you? Are you curious to know what has changed in terms of how engagement is 

viewed from the perspective of neuroscience? 

This book is inspirational, instructive and easy to read. Join in the wisdom of our 25 faces of engagement. 

They are just like you and me. What do they want? What do you want? 

If the engagement scores in your team are not what you desire and you want a quick reference to engagement 

at work, read Engage me, get inspired, share it with others and make the change. 


About My Brain (English) 

Alienta (Spanish)

José María de la Fuente 

José María de la Fuente (Alicante, 1964) is a poet, writer and playwright, and lives in Barcelona. Graduated in Teaching at the University of 

Valencia and with a degree in Spanish Philology at the University of Barcelona, he is currently teaching as well as working as Theatre Producer 

of Cia. Mousiké (Produccions La Maquineta + Cia. Susanna Barranco). As a playwright, he has written and produced several plays both for 

children and adults. In 2008 he published three new novels: El secreto del tamarindo, an inspiring novel published by Obelisco; La capsa de 

la fi del món, a novel based on the global warming for young readers, published by Edicions 62; and El oro del conserje, an inspiring novel for 

the business world that was published by Planeta (Spanish) and Ara Llibres (Catalan). Published in February 2011, El elixir is his most recent 

inspirational title. 

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EL ELIXIR (The Elixir) 

Cloud stairs exist. It is a strange phenomenon that very few people have seen. In fact, we hardly have a 

few pictures of this marvel, but the fact is that the impossible has fun, from time to time, making up a 

ladder of clouds in the sky. Those who manage to cross it, by any means or device, can enter the most 

amazing and unique magic shelters on Earth. There, an old man provides visitors with a particular product: 

a bottle with rainwater. Those who drink it, get a new gift, a power that transforms them when they 

return back to their lives. Of course, they must pay a heavy price in turn, as they have to give the old man 

a fragment of their own memory, something they will not be able to remember any more. 


Luciérnaga (Spanish)

Montse de Paz 

Montse de Paz was born in Lleida, 1970, and has a degree in English Philology. She has been working in charity foundations since she was 

eighteen. She became fond of Literature in her early childhood, and this interest has been enriched by her experience in social and professional 

tasks. Director and redactor of two magazines, she has written more than one hundred short scripts for radio programs related to human 

values. She frequently collaborates with some institutions and publications, giving lectures about solidarity, voluntary helping and matters 

related to women. She has written several non-fiction books, poetry a collection of short stories and two essays. In 2008 she published her first 

young adult novel Estirpe salvaje, followed by El heredero del clan. Ciudad sin estrellas is her first novel for the adult readership, and it won 

the Minotauro Award for science fiction novel in 2011. 


Ediciones Minotauro (Spanish) 

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CIUDAD SIN ESTRELLAS (A City Without Stars) 

Perseus Stone seems to have everything one should need: he is young, he has money, friends and distractions 

at will. He lives in Zwamp, a highly technological world, with a structured society, under an invariably 

grey sky by day, orangish by night. However, one day he discovers that everything that surrounds 

him makes him bored and he yearns for something else. 

Spurred by the memory and the last words of his mother, arrested as a detractor of the government and 

confined in a psychiatric prison, Perseus sets out on a quest that takes him from the most prosecuted 

virtual forums to the planning an risky exit outside the borders of his world. His exit will take him to an 

unexpected and astonishing reality that captivates him and will change his life irreversibly. Upon his 

return, nothing will be the same for him or the people around him. 

Montse de Paz, in the best tradition of classic sci-fi novel, offers the reader a story about the loss of 

innocence and the search for freedom.

Damià del Clot 

Damià del Clot (Vilassar de Mar, 1973) is a writer and lawyer specialized in Constitutional Law. As an author of politic essays he has published 

La delegació de funcions del president de la Generalitat, La figura del conseller primer (Mediterrània, 2007) and L’espai nacionalista a 

Catalunya (1999-2006): Crònica d’un enfrontament (La Busca, 2007), finalist of the national essay award Francesc Ferrer i Gironès. His debut 

in fiction was Notes d’un viatge a l’infern (Cossetània, 2009), winner of narrative award Vila Ametlla de Mar. Absolut Taronja (Columna, 2010), 

winner of Fiter i Rossell award from Andorra, is his most recent novel. 

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ABSOLUT TARONJA (Absolut Orange) 

Four university students from different Catalan cities and different origin share an apartment in Barcelona 

during one university course. Getting along quickly, they dive into constant fun, with many parties 

and large doses of sex and drugs, always irrigated with Absolut vodka with orange juice. They get into 

a spiral of hedonism that will keep them away from their studies and most vital concerns. Absolut 

Taronja recreates in an uninhibited way the chiaroscuros of leisure and nightlife in Barcelona for young 

people. It is a fresh and radical book, with many references to music and cinema. 


Columna (Catalan)

Kim Densalat 

Kim Densalat is a pilot and paratrooper instructor who has taught how to fly to a large number of people. He has more than a thousand 

parachute jumps under his belt and thousands of flying hours playing with death. He has written scripts for movies, has been stuntman in 

action sequences in movies and commercials and executive producer and director of films and documentaries. The Invitation is his first novel. 

F 

LA INVITACIÓN (The Invitation) 

The first book in a vampire trilogy, The Invitation tells a story of revenge through the centuries, though 

it hides a fierce critique of modern civilization. Bloody murders following identical liturgy take place in 

various parts of the world, apparently unconnected. The CIA and the Vatican suspect that vampires can 

be more than a myth and find out that a convention which will take place in Rome is arising enormous 

interest in the heights of religious, political and economic power. In fact, the Convention has been organized 

by an old enemy of the Catholic Church and of the economic power that has been controlling 

the fate of the world for a thousand years. And the nameless man, emerged from the darkness of the 

middle Ages, presents a game of appearances that will lead all those involved to a mortal trap. 


Planeta (Spanish)

David Escamilla 

David Escamilla is a journalist, writer and musician. He graduated in Political Science and Sociology (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona). He 

has published about thirty books (poetry, biographies, cultural guides, essays and narrative). He contributes to many radio stations (RAC1, COM 

Ràdio, RNE-Radio 1 and Catalunya Ràdio) and TV channels (TVE, Televisió de Catalunya, 25 TV, Urbe TV y Canal Català Televisió). He recorded an 

album as a singer (with songs composed by himself) and has also composed for other artists. Escamilla has been Editor-in-Chief in a number 

of magazines and Press Officer in publishing companies. He has written documentaries for television and directed a movie. His webpage is 

www.davidescamilla.com. 

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EL MANUAL DEL ESCAQUEO (A Handbook for Skiving) 

A real handbook about how to skive off at work, with a bunch of advices to shirk our work duties for 

some minutes, some hours, some days, some weeks, or even some years. Out from the daily experience 

at work come these advices and guidelines, like walking around holding a paper, going for a 

smoke, visiting the toilet very often, or the coffee or vending machine, even have resource to bomb 

threats, take advantage of sick leaves, of relatives’ funerals, of ill children in the family, and a long list 

of excuses in which real life, or a most feverish imagination will pay a fundamental role. 

The handbook presentation allows for the possibility to account for real cases, to suggests new tricks 

and, very especially, to provide the text with a funny and playful air. 


Gestión 2000 (Spanish)

David Escamilla 

David Escamilla is a journalist, writer and musician. He graduated in Political Science and Sociology (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona). He 

has published about thirty books (poetry, biographies, cultural guides, essays and narrative). He contributes to many radio stations (RAC1, COM 

Ràdio, RNE-Radio 1 and Catalunya Ràdio) and TV channels (TVE, Televisió de Catalunya, 25 TV, Urbe TV y Canal Català Televisió). He recorded an 

album as a singer (with songs composed by himself) and has also composed for other artists. Escamilla has been Editor-in-Chief in a number 

of magazines and Press Officer in publishing companies. He has written documentaries for television and directed a movie. His webpage is 

www.davidescamilla.com. 

IMAGE NOT 

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LA TIERRA DE LA FELICIDAD / BUTÁN, UNA SEMILLA INSPIRACIONAL PARA EL MUNDO 

(The Land of Happiness. Butan, an Inspirational Seed for the World) 

Butan, an isolated kingdom at the Himalayas, holds the youngest democracy in the world. The leaders 

of that state have reached the conclusion that the economic indexes alone cannot suffice to measure 

the wellness of a society. And thus, it was 35 years ago that its charismatic king decided that the Gross 

Domestic Happiness was far more important than the Gross Domestic Product. 

The specific model of Butan will be analysed, and in doing so ideas and inspirational seeds will be 

taken out to spread this model to as many corners in our world as possible. Given the terrible crisis we 

are living at all levels, we are more aware than ever of the crumbling of our social models, and of the 

need to reach new paradigms, new goals based on what we really need as human beings. 


Alienta (Spanish)

Eduard Estivill with Gonzalo Pin 

Eduard Estivill was born in Barcelona in 1948 and is a specialist in clinical Neurophysiology, Pediatrics and Sleep Medicine. Since 1989 he has 

been Director of the Estivill Sleep Clinic of the USP Institut Universitari Dexeus in Barcelona and coordinator of the Sleep Unit of the Hospital 

General de Catalunya. He trained as a sleep specialist in the United States, at the Sleep Disorders Center of the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, 

and is a member of the most prestigious Spanish and foreign bodies in this field. He is the author of seventeen popular science books on 

sleeping and correct habits, among which 5 Days to a Perfect Night Sleep four your Child, which has been translated into many languages and 

sold more than a 1.5 million copies. 


Random House Mondadori (Spanish) 

Random House Mondadori (Catalan) 

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PEDIATRIA CON SENTIDO COMÚN (Commonsense Pediatrics) 

This is not a customary manual. These pages, dear parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, and 

caregivers in general are meant to be your traveling companion. It is Commonsense Pediatrics, rigurous 

in its medical approach though explained in a simple way, direct in its suggestions and prescriptions 

though plenty of affection it its application. It is like having your own pediatrician at home when 

you are in need of calm and efficient guidance. With the added plus that you count on two doctors: 

your pediatricians are doctors Eduard Estivill and Gonzalo Pin. Is is the pediatric guide par excellence, 

though not only, because “commonsense” encourages us to go further: this books also reflects, in a 

coherent and realistic way, on the emotional aspects of the upbringing of our children, like attachment, 

selfesteem, values, an appropriate socialization, school, discipline, sexual education, playing , 

echology, sports, out-of-school activities. A book written from experience but with the heart, and with 

a wide smile as motto.

Eduard Estivill 

Eduard Estivill was born in Barcelona in 1948 and is a specialist in clinical Neurophysiology, Pediatrics and Sleep Medicine. Since 1989 he has 

been Director of the Estivill Sleep Clinic of the USP Institut Universitari Dexeus in Barcelona and coordinator of the Sleep Unit of the Hospital 

General de Catalunya. He trained as a sleep specialist in the United States, at the Sleep Disorders Center of the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, 

and is a member of the most prestigious Spanish and foreign bodies in this field. He is the author of seventeen popular science books on 

sleeping and correct habits, among which 5 Days to a Perfect Night Sleep four your Child, which has been translated into many languages and 

sold more than a 1.5 million copies. 

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Rights sold to: Debolsillo (Spanish and Catalan) 

Feltrinelli (Italian), Dom Quixote (Portuguese) 

Random House (USA), Dudaj (Albanian) 

Mlandinska (Croatian), Práh (Czech), Ullstein (German), 

Shufunotomosha (Japanese), Mladinska (Slovene) 

Oficina Libraria (French) 

EL MÉTODO ESTIVILL (The Estivill Method) 

Nowadays, most books on improving your child’s sleep take either a tough-love approach (ignore 

crying) or a soothing strategy (offer continuous comfort). But now an internationally renowned sleep 

expert provides a middle-ground method that will have your child sleeping through the night at any 

age. Dr. Eduard Estivill’s no-fail technique focuses on a mixture of authority, ritual, and reward. Parents 

can end negative cycles of resistance and wakefulness and feel as rested as their child will by 

following these expert tips: adopt a firm and confident attitude (your child will pick up on your mood); 

use meals as a cue to announce your child’s next nap or nighttime sleep; incorporate appropriate elements 

(such as a stuffed animal or a pacifier) at bedtime so your child will not rely on you as a vital part 

of the sleep process; reinforce the contrast between light (day) and dark (night); never punish children 

by making them go to bed (it sends the wrong message about sleep time); learn what to say before-and 

after-the light is turned off. Complete with special techniques to use with newborns, this health saving 

guide promises sweet dreams for all.

Eduard Estivill with Yolanda Sáenz de Tejada 

Eduard Estivill (Barcelona, 1948) is a specialist in clinical Neurophysiology, Pediatrics and Sleep Medicine, and director of the Estivill Sleep 

Clinic of the USP Institut Universitari Dexeus in Barcelona. He trained as a sleep specialist in the United States and is the author of seventeen 

popular science books on sleeping habits, among which 5 Days to a perfect night sleep for your child, which has been translated into many 

languages and sold more than a 1.5 million copies. 

Yolanda Sáenz de Tejada (Huelva, 1968) studied design. She is co-author with Dr. Estivill of ¡A jugar! (2008), and author of many books, including 

¡Corre, Edith Napoleón!, written along with Noemí Trujillo, and the poem book Poemas desde mi ombligo. Currently she works as a creative 

and directs her own publishing house, lalunaesmiaeditoras. 

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¡A JUGAR! (Let’s Play!) 

Open this book if you think that children are children; that they depend on your happiness and grow up 

with your kisses. If you don’t think so, don’t waste your money, you can browse through it or leave it 

in the shelves. Or give it to someone that wants to live again in the children’s heart. Some times, good 

habits – in eating, in hygiene o in the behaviour- are difficult to teach. This book tries to show parents 

how to educate their children through some games, while they grow with them. 

Rights sold to: Debolsillo (Catalan) 

Debolsillo (Spanish) 

Martins Fontes (Brazilian) 

Feltrinelli (Italian)

Madol Farrés 

Madol Farrés (Vic, 1962) is a writer and Journalist. She has worked for seventeen years in many local media, among others as a radio broadcaster 

for Onda Rambla and as correspondent for Catalunya Ràdio. Farrés occasionally works in the publishing industry as a writer for the publishing 

companies Castellnou and Credsa-Vox-Bibliograf. Her novel El monestir de l’amor secret won the Sant Jordi Award and Proa published it in 

2008. In 2009 JP Libros published the Spanish translation with the title Esa hora tan quieta. 

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EL MONESTIR DE L’AMOR SECRET (The Monastery of Secret Love) 

In the 14th century, two young monks, Galzeran de Monsingle and Berenguer de Vallclara, of noble 

origin, meet each other in the monastery of Sant Llorenç. One is a doctor; the other, a translator, and 

both must work together. They arrived at the monastery burdened with their pasts, and when desire 

grows between them, they get divided between the attraction they feel and their religious conscience. 

At the same time, their family problems, the Western schism, the threat of sprouting of a plague and 

the ins and outs of the monastery itself make up the background to this great story, perfectly set in the 

fourteenth century, strict in its contents, and magnificently written. 


Proa (Catalan) 

JP Libros (Spanish)

Rufino Fernández 

Rufino Fernández (Cañaveral, 1953) teaches in various business schools. For many years he undertook archaeological excavations in Prehistoric, 

Iberian, Roman and High mediaeval sites, and he has published various studies on the ancient world. He has contributed with stories to 

specialist magazines and also written a novel for teenagers. His historical novel La sombra del mercenario was finalist at the Alfonso X El Sabio 

Historical Novel Award in 2007. He has published two new titles recently: Gala Placidia. Reina de los bárbaros (Edhasa, 2010), a historical novel, 

and El líder de Atapuerca (Viceversa, 2010), a non-fiction book on leadership. 


Edhasa (Spanish) 

F 

GALA PLACIDIA. REINA DE LOS BÁRBAROS (Galla Placidia. Queen of the Barbarians) 

Daughter of Roman Emperor Theodosius I, Gala Placidia is one of the most intrepid and attractive female 

characters that we have inherited from ancient History. Daughter, sister, mother, and wife of emperors, 

was undoubtedly the most influential woman of her time. Her affairs with general Stilicho, her tricks 

with Serena, and their intrigues at the court of Honorius and Olympius took her to live randomly. After 

being captured by Alaric, king of the Visigoths when they laid siege to Rome, she accompanied them in 

their campaigns and end up marrying the successor of Alaric, Ataulf, with whom she would have a child 

in Barcelona. But the city that was for her a source of great joy, also became the scene of her greatest 

tragedies. On her return to Rome after being exchanged for a supply of wheat, she will be forced to marry 

the old general Constantius. With an undeniable talent for turbulent stock story, sharp psychological 

insight and powerful narrative pulse, Rufino Fernandez recreates the trajectory of a fascinating character 

and together with the reader witnesses not only an exciting life, but also the collapse of the Roman 

Empire, the arrival of the barbarians and the conspiracies of the court of Constantinople.

Rufino Fernández 

Rufino Fernández (Cañaveral, 1953) teaches in various business schools. For many years he undertook archaeological excavations in Prehistoric, 

Iberian, Roman and High mediaeval sites, and he has published various studies on the ancient world. He has contributed with stories to 

specialist magazines and also written a novel for teenagers. His historical novel La sombra del mercenario was finalist at the Alfonso X El Sabio 

Historical Novel Award in 2007. He has published two new titles recently: Gala Placidia. Reina de los bárbaros (Edhasa, 2010), a historical novel, 

and El líder de Atapuerca (Viceversa, 2010), a non-fiction book on leadership. 

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EL LÍDER DE ATAPUERCA (The Leader of Atapuerca) 

40,000 years ago the future of the human race was put at stake. The survival of man on Earth was 

threatened and the solution to its future was in the hands of a small group of men and women. What 

they did to overcome the crisis is part of the lesson that comes to mind and experience allows us to 

apply their recipes as if we were in an environment as difficult as theirs.The book includes a set of 

axioms, skills and rules that will help us to address adequately the leadership in times of crisis and 

will act as a permanent reminder for the periods of tranquility. 


Viceversa (Spanish)

Gabriel García de Oro 

Gabriel García de Oro was born in Barcelona, on 12th of July 1976. Despite having a degree in Philosophy, he works as a copywriter in advertising, 

a field where he has won a number of awards. Currently, he works at the Bassat-Ogilvy group. Like many other publicists, he endures the 

business and combines the activity that lets him earn a living with the activity that lets him feel alive, that is, writing for children and young people. 

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ÉXITO (Success) 

Football can be seen as metaphorical structure that reflects many of the situations that we can find in 

a company, using a language and describing given situations that are familiar to us all. 

In a football season we have moments of crisis and joy. In just seven days one can go from success 

to failure, from applause to boo. There is not a single team that is not subject to a changing of mood, 

concentration and ambition of the members of staff. All these are factors the coach must know how to 

manage. To achieve the goals depends on it. 

In Success coaches are given the word, for the first time in a book of management. Here, the coaches 

speak, the real Coaches. They will explain their secrets, their techniques, their struggles and their 

achievements in team management. 


Planeta (Spanish)

Ramon Gasch with Andreu González 

Ramon Gasch (Santa Maria de Palautordera, 1950) is a Technical-Electrical Engineer. He started to develop his 

passion for literature in an active way when he was forty. Written along with Andreu González, A carn! is his first novel. 

Andreu González Castro (L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, 1974) has published five poem books as well as novels, tales and 

articles as a co-author. He has won many prizes, among them the National Poetry Award Miguel Hernández, in 2005. 

He collaborates for magazine “El Ciervo”. 

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A CARN! (Do or Die!) 

After refusing to give shelter to the Spanish troops at his villa, during the Catalan Reaper’s War in 

1641, Joan’s fiancée is murdered by the Spanish soldiers and he kills two of their men. Joan is the 

heir of Can Marti, so the event brings him many problems. He decides to join the war and is bruised 

at the Battle of Montjuic. When he goes back home a new conflict awaits him: his brother Miquel has 

run away from home. He searches for him but he will find him dead, so he will bring home his nephew 

and his sister-in-law, whom he will eventually marry. He then goes to Barcelona with them, while the 

city is being devastated by the Black Death. There he meets the enigmatic El Frare, who helps him 

but hides a secret Joan will only be able to discover when he returns to the house where his beloved 

fiancée was brutally murdered. 


Columna (Catalan)

Martí Gironell 

Martí Gironell (Besalú, 1971) is a Journalist and has a degree in English Literature. At the age of fourteen he worked as a tourist guide in 

his town, and he begun is career at the radio in Besalú. He collaborated with Radio Olot, RAC 105 and Catalunya Ràdio. In 2001 he joined the 

program En Directe, at TV3, the Catalan public television where he is still working. He also writes for El Periódico de Catalunya and Catalan 

newspaper El Punt. Among his books published, El pont dels jueus, reached the bestseller lists just a few days after it came out, and has now 

sold more than 100.000 copies, and La venjança del bandoler, won de Nestor Luján Prize for Historic Novel in 2008. L’Arqueòleg is his most 

recent novel, which immediately went to the first positions in the bestseller lists and remains on top for weeks. 




F 

L’ARQUEÒLEG. De Montserrat a Terra Santa perseguint un somni 

(THE ARCHAEOLOGIST. From Montserrat to the Holy Land Searching for a Dream) 

Can you imagine a monk riding a camel through the Sinai Desert and facing all kinds of perils? Can you picture 

him without a gun or even a whip braving bandits, tomb raiders and frightening tribes such as the Iazidi devilworshippers? 

Imagine he does all this only to realize a dream which he would like to share with us! 

This man is Bonaventura Ubach. A Montserrat monk who left behind the peace and quiet of his monastic cell in 

order to achieve his goal, his dream. Without much ability to ride a camel but armed with exceptional faith and 

courage, Ubach decided to visit the biblical sites to find the inspiration to translate the Bible into Catalan (the 

Montserrat Bible) and to gather as many relevant objects as possible in order to set up the Biblical Museum, 

which in April 2011 will reach its first centenary. This is why he will go across the Sinai Desert, over the Red 

Sea into Israel, and then on to Petra, Jordan, Mesopotamia and Babylon so as to follow the footsteps of Moses 

and the Israelites, as well as Abraham’s trail. A thousand and one adventures against colossal settings which 

will get you to experience first-hand the prowess of a monk who did his outmost to attain a world of knowledge 

which he wanted to share with Catalan society at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Martí Gironell 

Martí Gironell (Besalú, 1971) is a Journalist and has a degree in English Literature. At the age of fourteenth he worked as a tourist guide in 

his town, and he begun is career at the radio in Besalú. He collaborated with Radio Olot, RAC 105 and Catalunya Ràdio. In 2001 he joined the 

program En Directe, at TV3, the Catalan public television where he is still working. He also writes for El Periódico de Catalunya and Catalan 

newspaper El Punt. Among his books published, El pont dels jueus, reached the bestseller lists just a few days after it came out, and has now 

sold more than 100.000 copies, and La venjança del bandoler, won de Nestor Luján Prize for Historic Novel in 2008. 

F 

EL PONT DELS JUEUS (The Bridge of the Jews) 

El pont dels jueus is an interesting historical novel set in Medieval Spain. Following the building of the 

medieval bridge of Besalú, a charming village set in the heart of Catalonia, the author discovers a fascinating 

world of love and passion, intrigues and violence. Prim Lombard, the Lombard master invited by the 

Count of Besalú to build the bridge, finds himself implicated in the fight for power when others aristocrats 

try to boycott the Count’s project. They will soon understand that the only support they can get comes from 

the Jewish community. Young Ítram, the Lombard master’s son, arrives in Besalú with his father and gets 

involved in the story as well as the whole village, but from a closer point of view: beautiful Jezabel is quickly 

conquering his heart. 

LA VENJANÇA DEL BANDOLER (A Bandit’s Vengeance) 


El Andén / Debolsillo (Spanish) 

Edicions 62 (Catalan), Sonzogno (Italian), 

Planeta Brasil (Brazilian) 

This is the story of Josep Pujol i Barraca, called Boquica, a Catalan bandit who fighted for freedom during the 

French War in the 18th century. He fighted on both sides of the conflict, a fact that gain him the nickname of 

Caragirat (double-crosser). Boquica embodies the contradictory figure of the bandit, malfeasant but also romantic, 

a strong fighter but also a sensitive human being after all. The world of muleteers, the black market 

and smuggling, personal relationships marked by the influence of religion, the French, traditions, superstitions, 

sorcery… All this will help to understand the Caragirat phenomenon and the world Boquica lived in.

Anna Grau 

Anna Grau (Girona, 1967), has lived in Barcelona, Granada, Mataró, Sabadell and Madrid, and at present she lives in New York. As a journalist 

she has covered for fourteen years the current political affairs in Catalonia and Spain for newspaper AVUI, and also as commentator for different 

Catalan media from radio and television. She works as a journalist from New York. As a writer she has published the novels El dia que va morir 

el president, Empúries, 1999, Dones contra dones, La Magrana, 2001 and Endarrere aquesta gent, Columna, 2003. 


Destino (Spanish) 

NF F 

DE CÓMO LA CIA ELIMINÓ A CARRERO BLANCO Y NOS METIÓ EN IRAK 

(On How the CIA Eliminated Carrero Blanco and involved Spain in Irak) 

What is top secret in Spain and what is not so in the black hand from the USA? Was the CIA implied in the 

attempt against Carrero Blanco, in Franco’s succession, in the Spanish 23-F? Are the US fiddling with the 

politics and destiny of Spain ever since the Cuba War Of Independence and up to the Irak conflict? Is this 

country, or was it, or would it be Europe’s Puerto Rico? Or is this country the anti-American reserve in 

the West to pin the blame on centuries of inner demons and paranoia? How much truth is there and how 

much urban myth in the thorny and complex (and always fascinating) relationship between Franco and 

Nixon, Gonzalez and Reagan, Aznar and Bush? What do we have ahead of us with Obama now? Is it what 

we expect? Anna Grau has written this book halfway between New York, where she is a correspondent 

for newspaper ABC, and Madrid. Her investigation has lead her to reach the bottom of the files where the 

ultimate official secrets of the empire are kept, and to intertwine the versions of the deep throats from both 

continents. She has been able to confirm through more than two independent sources (as required by The 

Washington Post) that truth is always stranger than fiction, by far.

Gerard Guix 

Gerard Guix (Vic, 1975) has learned, worked and collaborated with Theatre Companies and Theatres as Els Joglars, Teatre de Guerrilla, Teatre 

Romea, Focus, Sala Beckett, Teatro Kismett (Bari, Italy), Theatre O (London, UK) or The Rep – Birmingham Reporty Theatre (Birmingham, UK). 

He has also adapted for theatre texts by Oscar Wilde, Roman Polanski and Michael Ende. 

As a writer he has written novels such as Memorias (sucias y hambrientas) (Edición personal, 2000), La deriva dels continents (Angle Editorial, 

2005) and Dia de caça (Columna, 2007) that has had a great readers success as well as critics. In 2010 he won the Pin I Soler Award for his book 

Tot el que hauries de saber abans d’estimar-me, published by Columna. In 2011, he has also published the first installment of El prodigi, a 

trilogy for young readers. 




F 

TOT EL QUE HAURIES DE SABER ABANS D’ESTIMAR-ME 

(Everything You Should Know Before Loving Me) 

It has been five years since the casual meeting of Gerard and Anastasia in London. Shortly after, the girl 

went to live with him in Madrid, where the young man tried to change her into someone different from 

the Russian student that attracted him, at the same time that she has maintained a disconcerting silence 

about her past. Both have now undertaken a trip by car to central Europe to the Swiss shores of Lake 

Geneva. Although Anastasia does not know the reason for this departure, she thinks that maybe it is the 

last chance for them to save her relationship. Gerard, however, is obsessed about putting an end to his 

crisis as a writer, and the journey has as destination the house where Audrey Hepburn spent the end of 

her life, where he will try to boost his career with little conventional methods. Halfway between fiction 

and autobiography, Tot el que hauries de saber abans d’estimar-me shows in a harsh way the always 

difficult couple relationships, but profits the humour, suspense and fantasy to set out questions as if it 

would be possible to live without memories. An extraordinary love story narrated as an absorbent thriller.

Josan Hatero 

Josan Hatero was born in Barcelona in 1970. In 1996 he published his first book of short stories, Biografía de la huida. In 1999 he published 

his travel book Rumanía en octubre and the short novel El pájaro bajo la lengua¸ which was translated into to German in 2004. His writings 

have been included in many anthologies such as Páginas amarillas (1997) and Pequeñas resistencias (2002). He is author of the book of short 

stories Tu parte del trato, published in 2006. His most recent novel, the lover’s bestiary La piel afilada¸ was published by Alfaguara in 2010. 


Alfaguara (Spanish) 

Atmosphere Libri (Italian) 

F 

LA PIEL AFILADA (Sharp Skin) 

This is a book of outstanding originality: it is a reasoned out catalogue of lovers, a literary party with 

much of poetry about it. The intensity of each profile is really high, a very especial text that mirrors every 

lover’s attitude and preferences, with the most accurate, poetic and beautiful words. This is why this 

book requires to take time in the reading, just the way the reader would enjoy a cup of good wine, with 

short sips to savour at slow pace. A literary experiment with echoes of Borges, Calvino, Lee Masters, in 

which Josan Hatero with his selected and precise, sharp words makes us enjoy it as much as the lovers 

he portrays. Sharp: The touch of –against- their skin releases you from everything you want to get rid of 

without your noticing, you get outlined by it, your get discovered by it: this is how you really are. Whether 

you like it or not, after sex you are no longer the same, nothing can ever be the same. Puzzle: The nature 

of puzzle lovers is complex and, maybe as a consequence, unavoidably promiscuous. Their constant 

search for new partners does not respond (at least, not only) to sexual desire, but to the search of their 

own identity. What kind of lover are you?

Gaspar Hernàndez 

Gaspar Hernàndez (La Garrotxa, 1971) is a journalist and writer. He currently directs and presents “L’ofici de viure” of Catalunya Radio, a 

programme on the art of living and personal growth, with psychologists and philosophers. Hernàndez also publishes weekly interviews and 

articles on psychology and spirituality in newspaper “El Periodico”. On the same subject he writes occasionally for “El País Semanal”, the 

Sunday supplment to El Pais. He was also a collaboraor in the programme “Hora Q” of TV3. 

F 

EL SILENCI (Silence) 

In a beautiful room in Formentera, a man speaks softly to a woman all night long, while she’s asleep. 

She is Umiko, a young Japanese who teaches meditation and who believes in the power of spiritual 

healing. Even though she has cancer, she does not hesitate to defy traditional medicine. Umiko has 

passed through a though learning at a Zen monastery and is convinced that if emotions can make her 

ill, then they can also heal her. The man, full of doubts about her extravagant methods, talks to her 

about illness and spontaneous remissions, about the world of self help, personal growth and meditation. 

But Umiko asks more of the night, something more than words. 

El Silenc is a novel about the great power of confidence. In a extreme situation, when you’ve got nothing 

to lose, what could you be capable of? 


Columna / Labutxaca (Catalan) 

El Aleph (Spanish) 

Récord (Brazilian)

Pilar Jericó 

Pilar Jericó is a leading authority on talent management. She holds a PhD in the field of management and a degree in Economic and Business 

Sciences. She is Managing Partner for the InnoPersonas Consulting firm and was previously the Talent Management Director for the Hay 

Group. She is the author of many books, including La nueva gestión del talento: construyendo compromiso (Prentice Hall, 2008) and No Fear 

in bussines and in life (Palgrave MacMillan, 2009), translated into to many languages. 

Pilar Jericó is considered one of the top conference speakers in Spain, is a visiting lecturer at prestigious business schools around the world 

and is also a regular contributor to press, radio and television. 

NF 

HÉROES COTIDIANOS (Everyday Heroes) 

Find the keys to get over your personal and professional difficulties: become a hero! 

It is thanks to certain adverse situations that we can discover the great potential we hide inside 

ourselves, and Pilar Jericó shows us with elegance, enthusiasm and shrewedness, that courage is not 

the absence of fear, but the awareness that there are things worth taking risks for. She evokes that 

beautiful voice of Plato that there is no person, fearful as he or she can be, that cannot become a hero 

because of love. 

This book is an invitation to your personal epic. Thorough its pages you will find how to face the obstacles, 

overcome the denial and the fear, cross the deserts and learn how to create a new reality for you. 



Ara Llibres (Catalan)

Pilar Jericó 

Pilar Jericó is a leading authority on talent management. She holds a PhD in the field of management and a degree in Economic and Business 

Sciences. She is Managing Partner for the InnoPersonas Consulting firm and was previously the Talent Management Director for the Hay 

Group. She is the author of many books, including La nueva gestión del talento: construyendo compromiso (Prentice Hall, 2008) and No Fear 

in business and in life (Palgrave MacMillan, 2009). Pilar Jericó is considered one of the top conference speakers in Spain, is a visiting lecturer 

at prestigious business schools around the world and is also a regular contributor to press, radio and television. 

Rights sold to: Planeta (Spanish) 

Lua de Papel (Portuguese) 

Palgrave MacMillan (English-UK) 


NF 

NOMIEDO (No Fear) 

All of us feel fear when we face changes or some difficult situation at work. However, talking about fear in 

the companies is a taboo. Even if only positive messages are accepted in the companies’ reasoning, behind 

the scenes we find the cruel reality: the competitiveness for the results, power struggle, risk of dismissal 

and, of course, fear. If this word makes you feel uncomfortable, maybe it would be better to use terms such 

as anxiety, or stress. All these emotions have in common the fact that we feel them when we think we are 

threatened by something external; also the fact that the cost of these feelings is high for our life. NoMiedo 

shows us two challenges. The first one lies in freeing ourselves from fear: to develop our skills and power, 

often tied by our own insecurities. The second one, to avoid the managing through fear and try instead other 

possibilities, based on talent, change and innovation. Fear has been the classical way of managing; however, 

a past success doesn’t guarantee a future success. Future is owned by those who are able to create it, as 

long as they dare to break the rules and keep growing. This extraordinary book is a journey through the no 

fear that will help the reader to recognize and control this emotion in the company as well as in life itself.

Francisco José Jurado 

Francisco Jose Jurado (Córdoba, 1967) graduated in Law from the University of Córdoba. After a time devoted to research and university 

education in the field of Philosophy of Law, he directed his professional work towards the management of cultural projects. He began writing 

in 1998 and has since then received almost a hundred prizes and mentions in short story competitions and stories of national and international 

level. Benegas, his literary debut, has been very well received by critics and public. 

A regular contributor to newspapers, Francisco José Jurado is currently a columnist for the newspaper ABC. 


Almuzara (Spanish) 

F 

BENEGAS (Detective Benegas) 

Benegas is not a common detective. He is a researcher from the old school. Benegas is not carried 

away by hunches, intuitions or similar tricks. Logic fits him. Benegas is not a compulsive loser, a 

lonely alcoholic with a complicated life. He is a normal guy who even loves his wife. A keen and punctilious 

observer, persevering and stubborn as only a Taurus can be, the inspector has two allies in 

resolving the cases: a capacity for analysis certainly sui generis and a deep knowledge of the miseries 

of the human being after more than twenty years of experience. 

Three murders come to break the monotony of a quiet city like Cordoba. The body of a senior official 

of the Government of Andalusia appears floating in the waters of the Guadalquivir river during the hot 

month of August. A second case implies luxury prostitution, sex on the Internet and capital flight, with 

academics and university as background. And a third crime - the disappearance and death of a young 

writer of detective novels, hired as a ghostwriter by a renowned author - shows the sordid manufacturing 

of false prestige in the publishing world.

Milo Krmpotic 

Milo Krmpotic was born in Barcelona in 1974. Son of Argentinians and grandson of Croatians, Krmpotic began his career oriented to film 

directing. He currently combines his work as a novelist with the one of journalist and literary critic for “Qué Leer” magazine. Published in 2010 

by Caballo de Troya, his novel Las tres balas de Boris Bardin, will be released this year in Brazil by Tordesilhas. Gárgola is his most recent work, 

a crossover novel to be published soon by Seix Barral. 

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F 

GÁRGOLA (Gargoyle) 

Have you ever talked to the storm? 

The protagonist of this novel does, too often, though no cloud is dense enough to cover his ugliness. 

You can call him Balial, but you probably would never wish to pronounce his name. Never ever? Well, 

time is on his side, and anyone can be wrong having several hundred years to do so. Nobody knows 

how and when he was born, but today he is still there, on the top of the Cathedral, breathing the pollute 

air of Paris, waiting for the night to go looking for a quarry to bite… and to recall, day by day, the year of 

his fall, so long ago, when he was forced to choose between the pleasures of hell and the pains of love. 

This is his story... 


Seix Barral (Spanish) 

Tordesilhas-Alaúde (Brazilian)

Milo Krmpotic 

Milo Krmpotic was born in Barcelona in 1974. Son of Argentinians and grandson of Croatians, Krmpotic began his career oriented to film 

directing. He currently combines his work as a novelist with the one of journalist and literary critic for “Qué Leer” magazine. Published in 2010 

by Caballo de Troya, his novel Las tres balas de Boris Bardin, will be released this year in Brazil by Tordesilhas. Gárgola is his most recent work, 

a crossover novel to be published soon by Seix Barral. 

F 

LAS TRES BALAS DE BORIS BARDIN (The Three Bullets of Boris Bardin) 

Las tres balas de Boris Bardin is a roman noir in the classic style, plenty of anti-heroes and with 

some villain here and there, set in a small provincial town in the Argentina of the `80s, where its few 

inhabitants pay a price too high just because of finding themselves in the wrong place and at the worst 

time ever. The main plot unfolds with a surprisingly agile rhythm, leaving on its way robberies, security 

vans, cursed clans (the Bardins, of course), a most determined detective and an obsessive vengeance 

project that reaches the book’s very title. It is a noir novel, indeed, but not a sluggish one, even if the 

information comes gradually dispensed with intelligence. Only the very end, of which we will only reveal 

that it is perfect and complete, gives a hint to the reader of the real skin, for good or for bad, of the 

guys that feature this story, ironic to the most. A novel in the old style but also a funny one, as humour 

ticks now and then in a most clever way this dark story of violence, revenge and disappointment. 


Caballo de Troya (Spanish)

Marie Lambert 

Marie Lambert lives in Barcelona. She is graduated in Hispanic Philology as well as in Phonoaudiology and she also specialized in Creative 

Techniques for Literature. She is the director of the magazines about literature, and collaborates with several newspapers and magazines. She 

is the author of many books on writing techniques. 

F 

NF 

PALABRAS PARA QUERERTE MÁS (Words to Love You More) 

An inspiring compilation of thoughts about the value of the present moment and the things we have 

around us, Palabras para quererte más brings the reader the most beautiful proverbs and aphorisms 

written by writers, philosophers and other important personalities of History. 



Anna Llauradó with Carles Sans 

Anna Llauradó studied at the Lycée Français in Barcelona and has a degree in Media Studies from the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. She has 

worked in newspapers, magazines, television and radio, and has written scripts for the cinema and television as well as plays, tales and short stories. 

Since 2007 she devotes her time to literature. She published her first novel with El Andén, Tu sexo es mi perfume, and also children’s books. Llauradó 

has published two titles in 2010: Feliz nuevo día, written along with Lena Mercadal and published by Planeta; and Cita a dos, written with Carles Sans 

and published by Seix Barral. Carles Sans (Barcelona, 1955) is an actor and founding member of the theater company Tricicle. In addition to his role as 

an actor he has directed several short films, two of which (“Quien mal anda, mal acaba” and “David”) has been nominated for the Goya Awards of the 

Spanish Film Academy. Since 2002 he writes fortnightly in the newspaper “El Mundo”together with his fellows of Tricicle, Sans has staged the musical 

“Spamalot”, by Monty Python. 

NF 

CITA A DOS (A Date for Two) 

In this unique book written by four hands, Carles Sans and Anna Llauradó imagine a wide range of first 

dates with the particularity that each of the stories is always seen under his and her perspective, so 

that each one gives his/her version and vision of that first meeting. 

More and more people stay single, others split, others divorce, but the need to find a partner remains. 

Our elders say we do not tolerate the slightest setback and we are losing the capacity to live, interact 

and understand each other. Perhaps this book is a small seed, a tool to promote encounter and ignore 

the battle of the sexes and the roles they represent, and also, somehow, to learn to look to life through 

the eyes of the other. A literary mirror in which respect, dialogue and a great sense of humour prevail. 


Seix Barral (Spanish)

Manel Loureiro 

Manuel Loureiro was born in Pontevedra (Galicia, Spain). He holds a degree in Law for the Universidad de Santiago de Compostela. He lives and 

works in Pontevedra where he not only writes but he also practices law in an office devoted to commercial law. He worked as a scriptwriter and 

as a TV show host for the Galician television. He also contributes to Cadena SER, a national radio station. 

The story of his series Apocalipsis Z (Apocalypse Z) can be counted among the very few exceptional ones that go from anonymity to best seller 

lists in the twinkling of an eye. 

F 

Rights sold to: Dolmen (Spanish, Book #1) 

Plaza & Janés (Spanish, Book #2) 

ASA (Portuguese), Mauri Spagnol (Italian) 


APOCALIPSIS Z (Apocalypse Z), EL PRINCIPIO DEL FIN (Book #1: The Beginning of the End), LOS 

DÍAS OSCUROS (Book #2: The Dark Days), LA IRA DE LOS JUSTOS (Book #3: The Righteous’ Wrath) 

Apocalypse Z is one of the most astounding literary phenomenon in Spain nowadays, and it was almost by 

chance. It all started when the author decided to leave aside the legal literature to start writing a shocking story 

set in Europe about a hypothetical worldwide pandemic that turns those who are infected into No Dead, violent 

beings that put the society we have known so far to an end. Survivors, therefore, are obliged to run away. While 

he was writing the story, Loureiro uploaded the chapters in a blog called www.apocalipsiszombie.com and it 

soon exploded. The first one hundred readers quickly became one thousand, and then fifty thousand, and then 

one hundred thousand readers that finally became more than one and a half million readers from all over the 

world. The first part of the story was published in book format by Dolmen, a small Spanish publisher that in a 

few months had to face book requests not only from Spain but from many other countries in Latin America, and 

what had only been a virtual phenomenon by word of mouth soon became a publishing bomb. Plaza & Janés, 

the commercial imprint of Random House Mondadori in Spain, decided to publish the series under the title Apocalipsis 

Z: los días oscuros. Loureiro is now working on the third book, which will be delivered in Spring 2011.

Maitena 

Born in Buenos Aires in May 1962, Maitena first started working as a graphic illustrator for Argentinean newspapers and magazines as well as 

for serveral educational publishers. She was also a television scriptwriter. During the 80s Maitena published erotic cartoons in various European 

media. She currently contributes with comic strips to the following newspapers and magazines: Para Ti (Argentina), La Nación (Argentina), El 

País (Spain), Paula (Uruguay), La Stampa (Italy), El Mercurio (Chile), El Nacional (Venezuela), Última Hora (Paraguay), El Universal (Mexico), 

Primera Hora (Puerto Rico), Le Figaro (France) y Público (Portugal). Her first book of comic strips FLO (Ediciones de la Flor) preceded her major 

bestsellers MUJERES ALTERADAS #1, #2, #3 and #4, which sold 200,000 copies in Argentina alone. MUJERES ALTERADAS #5, published in 

Spain and Argentina by Editorial Lumen, consolidated Maitena’s position on the bestseller list for four consecutive months, with more than 

100,000 copies sold. 

F 

MUJERES ALTERADAS (Women on the Edge) 

As the saying goes, only the dumb and the dead never change. That’s why women 

spend their lives changing and rearranging. Forging ahead despite the distractions. 

Of love. Of friends. Of weight. Of revenge. Of life. Maitena understands women. Her 

observations are exquisite, precise, hilarious, honest, compassionate, universal. 

Readers of the world: meet Maitena! 


Lumen (Spanish), Métailié (French), 

Lappan (German), Harlenic (Greek), 

Ulpius-ház Publishing (Hungarian) 

Mondadori (Italian) 

Wydawnictwo De Libros (Polish), 

Presença (Portuguese), 

Riverhead (English- US) 


Lumen (Spanish) 

Classen (German) 

Harlenic (Greek) 

Sirene (Dutch) 

Mondadori (Italian) 

Presença (Portuguese) 

MUJERES SUPERADAS (Women over the Brink) 

Many readers have become adicted to Maitena’s cartoons. With a feminine look, 

Maitena’s drawings teach us how to laugh at ourselves, our relationships and nature 

with a sarcastic yet sweet sense of humour. This book is a selection of cartoons 

and it is the first title of a series that is being as successful as MUJERES 

ALTERADAS. SUPERADAS #1 and #2 sold over 35,000 copies in only a few months. 

An analysis as shrewd as funny of the problems women worry about such as work 

pressure, small domestic tragedies or diets.

Joan Marcé 

Joan Marcé (1965) is an architect and has spent most of his professional career as a house designer, with offices in Barcelona, Olot and Besalú, 

where he currently lives. The abrupt descent of the property market opened the possibility of exploring a long-delayed vocation: writing. Invited 

by the editor of the weekly “La Garrotxa”, who is his friend from a long time, he published a series of articles on architecture, ecology and 

sustainability. Articles that took an increasingly personal derivation and awoke in him an indispensable affection for literary creation. This all 

lead to the creation of El missatge, a novel of scientific intrigue, the first volume of a trilogy, that Edicions 62 did not hesitate to acquire. 

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Edicions 62 (Catalan) 

F 

EL MISSATGE (The Message) 

Ramon Verdaguer has a PhD in Biology. He works at the New Jersey Biological Institute as a collaborator 

to the Genome Project. An unexpected finding within an DNA sequence, apparently irrelevant, 

will spark off mysterious facts. This sequence contains a reiteration, both evident and totally alien to 

the logic of its genetic function. Intrigued, Ramon asks the opinion of his old friend Wang, a mathematician, 

which will prove his suspicions true and will lead him to a disconcerting scene: in this sequence 

there is a codified numeric system undoubtedly rational and a series of mathematic formulations of 

increasing complexity. Ramon doubts of the credibility of the transcription and suspects that it has 

been manipulated. 

This intriguing novel will appeal all readers of the thriller genre, especially those interested in science 

and technology, with genetic investigation and the growing influence of the pharmaceutic industry at 

the forefront

Lola Mariné 

Lola Marine was born in Barcelona but moved to Madrid, where she lived for a couple of decades and worked as an actress. Back in Barcelona, 

she graduated in Psychology and taught Theatre workshops in various schools for which she wrote several plays for children and directed the 

performance. She participated in three compilations of stories, the latter for the benefit of the Vicente Ferrer Foundation. Nunca fuimos a 

Katmandu is her first novel. 

F 

NUNCA FUIMOS A KATMANDÚ (Never Been to Katmandu) 

Laura is separated and lives with her teenage daughter. She is at a critical moment in her life and is 

not happy, but she is not sure how to put things right. Elena is her closest friend since childhood and 

her counterpart: a strong and passionate woman who is used to take the world by storm. Gloria has 

nothing in common with both of them: she is superficial and a slave of appearances. However, the 

three end up being great friends. There is also Teresa, a humble and hardworking woman willing to do 

anything to make true the dream of her daughter, Ruth, a young idealist and rebel. All of them are part 

of this mosaic of women of today who are independent and urban. They live and work in Barcelona and 

as any of us, struggle every day to be reasonably happy. 


Viceversa (Spanish)

David Martí 

David Martí (Barcelona, 1970) graduated in Humanism, worked for many years as a teacher, consultant and responsible of new-technology 

projects, but one day he decided to leave it all, change his life and dedicate himself to writing and giving lectures. His first book, La (r)evolución 

interior, was published in 2008. Les bruixes d’Arnes, published in Febrary 2010 by Edicions 62 is his first novel, which has reached the 15.000 

copies in just four months. 



Labutxaca (Catalan) 

F 

LES BRUIXES D’ARNES (The Witches of Arnes) 

Year 1533. In the small town of Arnes, surrounded by the imposing beauty of the forests and mountains of Tortosa 

and Beseit, with the river Ebro at the background, Maria, a strong and brave young woman, gives birth to 

her first daughter, Luna. Immensely happy, the grandmother Magdalena, an expert midwife and hard defender 

of the beneficial powers of nature, wants to welcome her granddaughter with an old prayer full of energy and 

knowledge. But she does it with fateful negligence: the old priest has listened to her words and is determined 

to do whatever is possible to destroy such heresy. 

On growing up, Luna will be taught about the power of the nature elements by Maria and a mysterious text, the 

Book of Essences, a compendium of all magic and natural knowledge that has been passed from generation 

to generation throughout the centuries. Now, however, mother and daughter and all their antique wisdom are 

at risk. Fanaticism and incomprehension are all around the region and the accusations of witchcraft get close 

to the village. As honourable heirs of their lineage, Luna and Maria are entitled to protect this secret book and 

give continuity to the chain, no matter if in their escape to Barcelona they take the risk to end burnt at the stake.

Gabi Martínez 

Gabi Martínez (Barcelona, 1971) is a writer. His novel Sudd was chosen by magazine “Qué Leer” and weekly supplement of newspaper “El Periódico” as one 

of the ten best novels of 2007, along with authors such as Cormac McCarthy, Jonathan Littell or Javier Marías. His other novels, Hora en Times Square and 

Ático have also achieved excellent reviews, making him one of the writers that have renewed the Spanish literature. As a travel books’ writer (Solo marroquí, 

AntiCreta) he is seen as one of the impellers of this kind of books. With Diablo de Timanfaya he generated some great cultural and political polemic. 

His book Una España Inesperada turned him into a referent of the literary journalism in Spanish. Los mares de Wang, a journey to the Chinese coast, 

was published in June 2008. The book was elected one of the best titles on non-ficcion of 2008 by magazine “Qué Leer” and number one of “Condé Nast 

Traveller”. He is the co-screenwriter of “Ordinary Boys”, a documentary fiction about the neighbourhood of Tetuán, where five terrorists of the 11-M lived. 

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F 

SÓLO PARA GIGANTES (On Giants) 

Sólo para gigantes is the story of Magraner, a man who broke his promising future as a zoologist at 

the Museum of Natural History in Paris to get into the Hindu Kush Pakistani mountains in search for 

the yeti (called barmanu in those lands). After becoming a leader of the Kalash people (3000 pagans 

surrounded by Muslims), he was murdered. 

Sólo para gigantes tells also of the investigation in France and Pakistan of the author of the book, Gabi 

Martínez. The proofs he has gathered give evidence of numerous irregularities in the police investigation 

of this murder, and he also tells of the danger he himself was put in: the very day of his departure, 

a group of Talibans kidnapped another foreigner who was also in those valleys, for whom they are 

requesting two million dollars and the release of three Taliban leaders. Before coming back to Europe, 

Martinez, following the wish of Magraner’s family, placed a tombstone at the grave where he lies. 



Ara Llibres (Catalan) 

Rocco (Brazilian)



of the ten best novels of 2007, along with authors such as Cormac McCarthy, Jonathan Littell or Javier Marías. His other novels, Hora en Times Square and 







Libros del Náufrago (Spanish) 

Má Criação (Portuguese) 

F 

ATICO (Attic) 

Curious, shy, day dreamer, obsessive. This is Eduard, a computer programmer who, following to being fired 

at work, decides to shut himself up in an attic to create a videogame that will eventually be known worldwide. 

Literature and science intertwine in a plot that includes episodes of virtual reality closely related to 

Eduard’s own story. 

The game consists of five screens, each of which is an attic inhabited by an individual one has to seduce in 

order to reach the next screen, and one needs to complete the whole journey in a limited time. These fictional 

characters have stored the best dialogues of universal literature, so that Attic, the name of the game, 

becomes a challenge both physical and intellectual. On the other hand, Eduard has his own challenge to 

achieve; not to leave the upper floor flat until the game ends. 

Eduard’s reality comes muddled with that of his virtual characters, even if all of them share love, loneliness 

and fantasies, the keys of this novel that is also about Barcelona, about man as opposite to world politics, 

about horses, about Delacroix and many more things. Ático is genuine literary vanguard..



of the ten best novels of 2007, along with authors such as Cormac McCarthy, Jonathan Littell or Javier Marías. His other novels, Hora en Times Squareand 








Rocco (Brazilian) 

Mladinska Knjiga Beograd (Serbian) 

F 

SUDD (Sudd) 

After a twenty-year conflict in the heart of Africa, the war considered to be the longest and bloodiest ever 

reaches a truce. With an aim to put a symbolic stamp to peace, a cosmopolitan expedition that gathers 

businessmen, polititians and representatives of the confronted tribes embarks on a crossing that will go 

upriver the White Nile, towards the South of the country. On their way they come accross a swampy area 

of huge dimensions and mutant appearance. A terrain that will not let itself be discovered. A hostile and 

devouring geography: Sudd. An odyssey sets up in which the civilisation gradually moves apart, to the extent 

of acquiring the appearance of a dream, and the crew will have no other choice than either to ally, like in a 

small Babel, or else to wander through the swamps to death. Going adrift, those with better commands of 

languages will acquire an unusual power. With perfect dramatic tension and an admirable dealing of suspense, 

we embark with Gabi Martinez on this earth and water labyrinth, while we take part of the hardships 

and uncertainties, but also of the light and colours of inland Africa. Sudd, thus, becomes both a magnificent 

novel and a parable of civilisation.

Fernando Martínez Lainez 

Fernando Martínez Laínez was born in Barcelona and is a writer with a long journalistic and literary career, culminated by the V Algaba Award of History Investigation 

thanks to his book Como lobos hambrientos, about the Spanish guerrilla fighters during the Independence War. During almost twenty years he worked for the 

International Information Service at EFE Agency and lived as correspondent and delegate in UK, Cuba, Argentina and USSR. He has worked as a reporter, especial 

correspondent and TV and radio programme’s screenwriter, and has travelled to America, Middle East, north of Africa, Central Asia, China, Japan, East Europe and 

other countries. He is an expert in International Affairs, specially those related to eastern Europe and the former soviet republics. With Carne de trueque (1977), 

Martínez Laínez was one of the first thriller novel writers in Spain. He has published several thriller novels, as well as biographies, essays, journey books, young 

readers’ books and historical novels. He is President of the Association of Spanish Thriller Novel Writers, he has written at several newspapers and magazines and 

currently is columnist at the ABCD de las Artes y las Letras, and collaborates at the magazine de Historia y Vida and la Revista Española de Defensa. 

F 

LOS LIBROS DE PLOMO (The Lead Books) 

The Alhambra in Granada has been besieged by an Islamist Group. They want to have Al-Andalus back. 

Rumour says that the leader of the group is a descendant of Fernando Valor who, back in the 16th century, 

headed the rebellion at the Alpujarras. His name is Aben Umeya. Tha alarm is raised all throughout 

the country and the national intelligence service gets mobilized. But this is only the beginning. 

They announce that they have placed a nuclear bomb at the Alhambra. Rumours spread… A book has 

disappeared from the Sacromonte Abbey. There’s a man that calls himself the new Messiah, he is recruiting 

people against the Islamists. Granada is terrified by a number of murders that seem to aim at the 

confrontation between religions. What will come out of this all? Will the police be able to stop the bomb? 

Will the murdered be tracked down?. 


Martínez Roca (Spanish)

Lena Mercadal with Anna Llauradó 

Lena Mercadal (Barcelona, 1951) has a degree in Medicine and Surgery. She travelled to Sri Lanka in the 1980s in order to learn Chinese 

Traditional Medicine and it was then when she began to learn and practice the medicine known as Alternative Medicine. She has also studied 

masters and other studies on Homeopathy, Hypnosis and other treatments. She has been director and teacher at the Escuela de Estudios 

Superiores de Acupuntura Médica, at the Hospital Sagrado Corazón in Barcelona. She has been also teaching postgraduate courses of 

acupuncture at the Universitat de Barcelona, as well as at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Anna Llauradó studied at the Lycée Français 

in Barcelona and has a degree in Media Studies from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She has worked in newspapers, magazines, 

television and radio; she has written scripts for the cinema and television as well as plays, tales and short stories. Since 2007 she devotes to 

literature exclusively. 

NF F 

FELIZ NUEVO DÍA (Happy New Day) 

Can you imagine being able to change your life in just 21 days? You can indeed imagine it, because, as 

a matter of fact, you can. Neuroscience has shown that the brain has a capacity called Neuroplasticity, 

which is the physical basis for us to learn new behaviours, new patterns and how to be successful in 

changing. Therefore, in order to change your life, you must first change your way of thinking. 

This outstanding book has the key for you to make a start. With this simple and effective text you will 

discover that the human mind is malleable and can be educated, so you can re-educate and change 

yours, in order to think better and live better, activating the chemistry of wellbeing that each of us have 

in our beings. 



Bertrand (Portuguese)

Francesc Miralles 

Francesc Miralles (Barcelona, 1968) has a degree in German Philology and worked as a publisher. He has been awarded with several prestigious 

literary prizes for his novels, both for young readers and the adult readership. He has written self help books such as El zen de la empresa, 

and Conversaciones sobre la felicidad (both with Planeta/Alienta). Ediciones B-Vergara published his novels Amor en Minúscula and Ojalá 

estuvieras aquí, which have been sold in several countries. In 2009 he won the Ciudad de Torrevieja Award with the book La última respuesta, 

written along with Àlex Rovira, with whom he also wrote Un corazón lleno de estrellas, already sold in several countries. Grup 62 and Martínez 

Roca have published his thrillers El cuarto reino, La profecía 2013, and most recently El secreto de Picasso, all of them featuring Leo Vidal. 



Ediciones Urano (Spanish) 

F 

EL SECRETO DE PICASSO (The Secret of Picasso) 

1898. Young Pablo Picasso is in Horta de Sant Joan, a rural town in southern Catalonia. After wandering 

with a friend several weeks by wild forests, vast gorges and icy torrents, he decides to stay in a 

cave, where they sleep on a bed of grass and eat rice cooked on a bonfire. Near this cave Picasso meets 

a fifteen-year-old Gypsy painter boy with whom he has a brief affair. Before their separation, the villager 

gives him a sketch that shows the hiding place of an Arabic treasure hidden in 1152. According to 

the gipsy, he had seen it in a dream where it was prohibited, under threat of death, to try to dig it. More 

than a century later, a mighty art critic will ask journalist Leo Vidal to track the whereabouts of “the 

secret of Picasso”. An adventure that will take him to study the clues the painter left in his works and 

to know the environment of the famous painter. An exciting novel, based in real documents, that shows 

a completely unknown Picasso who practiced shamanism and was introduced into the mysteries best 

kept in a territory so untamed as isolated and legendary: the deep south of Catalonia and Matarraña, 

in Aragon.








F 

Rights sold to: Amsterdam Llibres (Catalan), 

List (German), Contraponto (Portuguese), 

Record (Brazilian), Mlandinska 

Knjiga Beograd (Serbian), Vergara (Spanish) 

OJALÁ ESTUVIERAS AQUÍ (Wish You Were Here) 

The life of Daniel, a prestigious architect, has been a series of successes that ends on his thirtieth 

birthday, when his fiancée leaves him and his perfect future life seems to crash. Lost, he begins to 

listen to the music that a friend from University gave him. The singer is Eva Winter and the title is 

Ojalá estuvieras aquí (“Wish you where here”), and it seems like this music echoes inside of him. For 

his surprise, it is as if every song was telling something about him. One of them, “Flores en la niebla” 

(“Flowers in the mist”), has as the main character a young architect who, after breaking up with his 

girlfriend, crosses the border to follow a mysterious woman who seems to be the same singer. Without 

saying anything, Daniel decides to do something: he flees to Paris , where Eva Winter lives. While he 

discovers his own identity – and maybe the love of his live –, he begins to suspect that the coincidence 

between the songs in Ojalá estuvieras aquí and his own life is not such a coincidence. After meeting 

the singer, another person will turn up, and a secret will emerge; a secret that will change everything.








F 

Rights sold to: Ara Llibres (Catalan), 

Aguilar (Spanish), Yuan-Liou Publishing (Chinese), 

Liaoning WAnrong Book (Chinese), 

Gimmyoung Publishers (Korean), 

Bertrand (Portuguese), Leya (Brazilian) 

UN CORAZÓN LLENO DE ESTRELLAS (A Heart Full of Stars) 

Selonsville, 1946. The harshness of a long and cold winter seems not to abandon a city still recovering 

from the war’s wounds. In an orphanage, Michel and Eri, inseparable friends, are gazing at the night 

sky from the roof. None of them knows that the next morning Eri will not wake up. She will get into a 

deep comma, the doctors being unable to find a solution for her to come back to life. Only Michel will 

be able to change his friend’s destiny, guided by an old woman’s advice. The boy will have to find nine 

people, and make out a heart with pieces of clothes from each of them. In order to make this heart 

beat, he will need to find the secret of endless love, which hides right down the bottom of his heart. 

Álex Rovira and Francesc Miralles offer us with A Heart Full of Stars a cozy story full of hope. An 

invitation to make the most sublime and powerful inside of us to come to light. A unique book that 

teaches how to fly to the confines of the universe, where light and love can conquer all by travelling 

to the different dimensions of the heart. Welcome to the most beautiful adventure in the world: love.








F 

AMOR EN MINÚSCULA (A Course in Everyday Magic) 

Samuel lives trapped inside an air-bubble formed of loneliness which he only leaves to teach at the 

university. The impenetrable world which he has built around him starts to fall apart the day a stray cat 

enters his home. It will lead him to Titus, a middle-aged editor, who gives him some essential lessons 

of life and takes him by chance to Gabriela, a love from childhood, who reappears miraculously thirty 

years later, under the shape of an enigmatic woman. Samuel sets off on an initiation adventure full of 

surprising revelations. He will learn that those insignificant everyday acts, even the tiniest ones, have 

the power to unleash a hurricane or awaken the heart of his lethargy. 

Rights sold to: Ara Llibres (Catalan), Ediciones B (Spanish) 

Record (Brazilian), Znanje (Croatian), Fleuve Noir (French) 

Ullstein / Tradewind (German), Giunti (Italian) 

Munhakdongne Publishing (Korean) Nasza Ksiegarnia 

(Polish), Pergaminho (Portuguese), Evro Giunti (Serbian) 

Phoenix-Edita Press (Simpl. Chinese)








F 

LA ÚLTIMA RESPUESTA (The Last Answer) 

There is an extremely powerful strength that can change our conception of universe and our own life. 

Until now nobody had got to find its explanation. Albert Einstein cleared it up at his moment with a 

mathematic equation, but, for any unknown reason, decided to keep it hidden. Javier, a radio scriptwriter, 

a looser and a little despicable guy, and Sarah, a mysterious and seductive specialist on the 

German genius, will be part of a search full of dangers and surprises that will take them to the places 

where the most famous Nobel Prize of all times lived, worked, suffered and loved. What they do not 

know is that their adventure in search of the last answer will be an illuminating trip to the depths of 

their own selves. 

Rights sold to: Ediciones 62 (Catalan), Plaza & Janés (Spanish), 

Record (Brazilian) Jieli (Chinese), Chung Rim (Korean) 

Éditions First (French), Ullstein (German), Newton Compton 

(Italian), Wydawnictwo Galaktyka (Polish), Eksmo (Russian) 

Mladinska Knjiga Beograd (Serbian), Asa (Portuguese), 

Atena Kustannus (Finish), Ye-Re (Complex Chinese)

Xavier Moret 

Xavier Moret (Barcelona, 1952) has combined for years his work as a journalist with the one as a writer and traveller. He is currently a collaborator 

of newspaper El Periódico, where he regularly publishes columns and stories of his journeys across the five continents. One of his travel books, 

Islàndia, l’illa secreta (Brau Edicions), was awarded the Grandes Viajeros prize in 2002. In this genre he has also published, among others, 

Amèrica, Amèrica, Boomerang, and El català de la Terra de Foc. In another genre, El Bulli des de dins. Biografia d’un restaurant received the 

Sent Sovi Award 2006 of gastronomic literature. As for his novels, he has published titles such as Dr. Pearson, Zanzíbar pot esperar and L’home 

que adorava la Janis Joplin. Tramuntana is his most recent novel. 

IMAGE NOT 

AVAILABLE 


Empúries (Catalan) 

F 

TRAMUNTANA (Tramontane) 

Max Riera, an alternative and hippie detective, is enjoying his summer holidays in Empordà, when he 

gets a double assignment: on one hand, his editor Sergio Bastida asks him to write a crime novel set in 

Empordà, on the other hand, a blonde woman who seems to have come from a crime novel or a movie 

asks him to investigate the appearance of a corpse of a girl in a nearby forest, recently burnt. The only 

clue to identify the girl is that she has a mermaid tattooed on her buttock. 

Accompanied by his friend Roc, a hippy-turned-journalist who drives luxury cars, has a 22-year-old 

lover and has good knowledge on cuisine, Max begins the investigation without writing a single line 

of the novel. The investigation will take them to places like the brothel Paradiso and sordid pensions 

in Figueres. They will know La Marquesa, a highway prostitute who helps the girls battered by their 

pimps and discover the licentiousness on prostitution in the Empordà. A world that will show them the 

power of local entrepreneurs, descendents from Catalan feudal dynasties, the destruction caused by 

the cement and their own status of middle-aged men.

Elena Moya Pereira 

Elena Moya Pereira grew up in the Mediterranean coastal town of Tarragona, south of Barcelona, in the last years of the Franco dictatorship. 

After attending University in Spain, she was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to do a Masters in Financial Journalism in the U.S. 

Elena worked in newspapers in Barcelona and Reno, Nevada, and settled in London in 1998. She is currently a business reporter for The 

Guardian, having worked at Bloomberg and Reuters newswires previously. She lives with her partner in North London. 

F 

THE OLIVE GROVES OF BELCHITE 

A weekday morning in London. Maria flies in from Barcelona to choose a UK base for the Caves Gratallops 

cava business. The lover she will bring home will be the last person her Catholic family expects. 

Or her fiancé, Jordi Gratallops. A long-standing member of Opus Dei, he too finds himself in a crisis of 

loyalties when old enemies put his father’s business in jeopardy. Both have secrets they will struggle 

to explain, and time is running out. Moving between the long shadows of the Spanish Civil War and the 

business battles of a global economy, The Olive Groves of Belchite is Elena Moya’s tale of how the past 

haunts our lives and of the battles that have just begun when the fighting is over. The Olive Groves of 

Belchite is a layered, well-paced novel fusing times and themes within the framework of a love story 

with a difference. 

Originally written in English. 




Vanguard Press (English UK)

Jordi Nadal 

Jordi Nadal (Lliçà d’Amunt, Barcelona, 1962) has a degree in German Philology from the University of Barcelona, has worked in Publishing Houses in 

Germany, Spain and the USA. He has been director of EDHASA, Publishing director at Círculo de Lectores, consultant at Random House New York, 

General Director of Grupo Plaza & Janés for South America and Corporative Development Director for Spain and South America, as well as assistant to 

General Director at Ediciones Paidós. He has also been co-author of the book Meditando el Management (2003); second edition revised Meditando el 

Management…y la vida (Barcelona, 2005) and co-author of Libros o velocidad. Reflexiones sobre el oficio editorial (Fondo de Cultura Económica, 

Madrid and México, 2005). In 2005 published in Spanish Todo tan cerca (Ámbar, 2005), title that has been translated into four languages. In 2007 he 

founded Plataforma Editorial and since 2003 lectures about matters related with publishing. His novel Tu nombre was published in 2008 by Almuzara. 

F 

TU NOMBRE (Your Name) 

Two short novels? Two love confessions? Two dreams? The texts in Tu nombre follow the steps of the 

feeling of love. Two scenes that make up a road map of two passions. 

Someone describes what a woman makes him feel waiting behind a glass display case, invisible, impassable. 

An impossible encounter. A man in love calls the woman of his dreams, after having written 

her all she makes him feel. Tu nombre is a book that can take to pieces some deep-routed topics. A 

gift for women made from the men’s heart. 


Spain (Almuzara)

Michelle K. Nielsen 

Dr. Michelle Nielsen is a healer, entrepreneur and speaker. Through her popular seminars, she coaches “Master-Manifestors-In-Training” in 

her practical, proven reality-creation techniques. She is a featured co-author with Dr. Wayne Dyer and other inspirational writers in the book 

In Service. Her own book, Manifesting Matisse: A Practical Approach to Reality Creation, was released in November, 2008. In it she shares 

a practical, proven process you and I can use to realize our visions for our lives and the world. Dr. Nielsen is a highly-regarded, awarded 

researcher and innovator in her field, actively involved in the planning and development of Barcelona’s first chiropractic program of study: 

Barcelona College of Chiropractic. 

NF 

MANIFESTING MATISSE: A PRACTICAL APPROACH TO REALITY CREATION 

This book is the story of how one mother manifested her son’s healing from severe developmental 

delay, neurological damage and attachment issues, through the quantum-spiritual principles of reality 

creation (a.k.a. “The Law of Attraction”). 

It is also a proven hands-on process you can apply to make the most of those same principles and manifest 

absolutely any vision for yourself or others: material, emotional, spiritual, or altruistic in nature. 

“Basic training” in the simple skills Master Manifestors like Oprah Winfrey, Jack Canfield, Tina Turner, 

and Nelson Mandela use to live their dreams and help others do the same! It’s a step-by-step manifestation 

program that will have you thinking about (and using) your shelf of personal development 

resources in an exciting new way!. 


BookSurge Publishing (English US) 

Obelisco (Spanish)

Maria Rosa Nogué 

Maria Rosa Nogué was born in November 1965. She has a degree in Catalan Philology and she went to Doctorate courses of Modern Literature 

at the University of Barcelona; she also has a degree in Piano by the Conservatory of the Liceu, and she sang some years at the Orfeó Català 

(Catalan Choral Society). She has published short stories for children and adults. In 2000 she wrote her first novel Els sonets a Anaïs (Ed. 

del Garraf, 2001; 1st Award of the Short Novel of the newspaper Diari de Vilanova). Since 2001 collaborates weekly at the newspaper Diari de 

Vilanova. In 2007 she wrote the young readers novel La noia del descapotable. Launched in 2010 by Barcanova, La casa dels cants is her most 

recent novel. 


Barcanova (Catalan) 

F 

LA CASA DELS CANTS (The House of Chants) 

The replacement of the director of the Orfeó Català triggers a series of parapsychological phenomenon, 

linked to the construction of the Palau de la Musica (a concert hall designed in the Catalan 

modernista style by the architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner), which will eventually change the lives 

of the main characters of this novel and those close to them. Marc Ayats, the new director, and Olga 

Vilorbí, a very especial singer, will discover that they were already linked in the past. Both are chased 

by the shadow of Clara, twin sister to Olga, who is related to the female character of a song, and is also 

one of the main sculptures at the façade of the Palau. Marc and Olga will set out to a journey that will 

take them to the years of the construction of the building, by which they will discover what lies behind 

the passion for music and the love attraction they have for each other, with the help of the Yyjing, a 

Xinese book of oracles. The phantoms of the Palau, the power of musical creation, and the magic of 

Modernism, and a daily portrait of a contemporary choral society, where singers and directors fight to 

elevate their chants beyond a reality that may become disconcerting.

Lluís Oliván 

Lluís Oliván (Lliçà d’Amunt, 1968) is the author of several titles that have been awarded different literary awards, both in Spanish and in Catalan, 

like El guardián de las hogueras (EDAF, 2006, Ciudad de Getafe Award) or Un pare possible (Columna Edicions, 2007, Fiter i Rosell Award). He 

has also won other awards in short story writing. 

IMAGE NOT 

AVAILABLE 

F 

NUSOS (Bonds) 

A novel just as well-written as shocking, about how to define one’s own identity and reality within a 

context in which our ideals go as radical as to have resource to violence. Berta, the daughter of a writer 

of a certain success, killed one year before at a brutal aggression by a group of skinheads, fights 

to understand the world from a raged and radical individualism: she rebels against all those who try 

to make a victim of hers (teachers, psychologists, class mates) while taking, at the same time, one 

only escape route: to resume the task of his father. She will become a cold narrator, both distant and 

omnisccient, of the moments that have marked the life of his father’s family. She will discover (and us, 

with her) the bonds of the family that remained untied. Reality, memory and fiction will get scrambled 

in a series of mythological stories that, mixed with Berta’s own teen experiences, will help her express 

herself and find a new identity. 


Columna (Catalan)

Teo Palacios 

Teo Palacios (Dos Hermanas, Sevilla, 1970) studied Marketing and Design and has worked as real-estate section chief, director and assistant 

director in a number of companies. He lived in Catalonia and Galicia, and went back to his home town where he currently lives. He belongs to 

the committee of the Fantastic Literature Day at Dos Hermanas, event that year after year has reached a wider acknowledgement and gathers 

important authors of the Spanish literary scene. He contributes as an interviewer and writer for many magazines, Cambio16, Cuadernos para 

el diálogo, La aventura de la Historia among others. He also teaches literary creation. Hijos de Heracles (Edhasa, 2009) is his first novel. 

F 

HIJOS DE HERACLES. El Nacimiento de Esparta 

(SONS OF HERACLES. The Birth of Sparta) 

When King Teleclus was murdered in 735 b.c., Sparta began an eighty year war with the Messanians. 

During those years, Sparta grew in extension and culture, becoming a feared and admired city. However, 

Spartans turned their back on this splendour in order to become a military and austere nation 

during the reign of Theopompus and his son, Anaxandridas I. Those changes led the Eurypontid royal 

family to crisis. Through the stormy relationship of cruel Theopompus with his confronted sons, 

Anaxandridas and Archidamus, Palacios takes us to a disturbing and not much known historical period 

of battles and drastic political changes, but also to royal intrigues, intimate scenes and refined debates 

of ideas. A definitive novel about a fascinating and enigmatic culture. 


Edhasa (Spanish)

Agustín B. Palatchi 

Agustín Bernaldo Palatchi (Barcelona, 1967) is a renowned lawyer. He dedicated five years of his life to investigate deeply a fascinating historic 

time he always wanted to write about: the Italian Renaissance. The result is a vibrating and well documented book, La alianza del converso, 

which explores the human soul with a penetrating look. 


Roca (Spanish) 

Planeta Manuscrito (Portuguese) 

F 

LA ALIANZA DEL CONVERSO (The Convert’s Ring) 

Unfairly condemned to death, Mauricio Coloma’s father confesses to his son that he descends from 

Jews and that he keeps a ring with a fabulous emerald that will help Mauricio start a new life in Florence. 

There, Mauricio will save Lorenzo de Medici from a murder conspiracy and he will meet Lorena, 

the daughter of a well-off family. 

The 15th century was a period of conspirations, invasions, fights, plagues and the discovery of new 

maritim routes, and it is within this context that the author makes Mauricio, his main character, face 

not only the difficulties of that time, but also his own demons. Just like the Florentines of the 15th 

century searched for wisdom in the classics from their past, so do Palatchi’s characters look for the 

truth about themselves by looking back and defending the truth of their own ancestors. Palatchi, thus, 

is proposing a reading of this story set in the remote past with the eyes of the present. Florence had to 

revise its past in order to jump into the future. This is maybe what we should be doing in this time and 

age, suggests the author.

Alejandro Palomas 

Alejandro Palomas (Barcelona, 1967) has a degree in English Studies from Universitat de Barcelona. He obtained an M. A. in Poetics at the New 

College of San Francisco. He has contributed to several newspapers and has translated writers such as Katherine Mansfield, Gertrude Stein, 

Willa Cather and Jack London. He is the author of several novels which have gained him a devoted readership, both in Spain and several foreign 

countries, among which we can find Tanta vida, translated into several languages, or El secreto de los Hoffman, which was a finalist at the 

Torrevieja Novel Award in 2008. In 2011 Palomas has been finalist of the Primavera Award with his novel El alma del mundo. 

F 

EL ALMA DEL MUNDO (The Soul of the World) 

On the June afternoon when Clea Ross and Otto Stephens arrived at the old people’s home of Buenavista 

none of them could imagine that they were carrying more than the weight of their age on their 

backs. Nor does Ilona, the young keeper who takes care of them by their express request, manage to 

assume what these three months with them would bring to her life. 

It has been three months and three souls united by the need of company and affection. And a cello. Two 

old adventurers rebelling against boredom and two children decided to go for the risk, life and truth. 

And this young woman, Ilona, who hides a secret that scares her because of the pain it may cause. 

El alma del mundo is a great love story and also the great story about love: love for music, for life, and 

the last chances that two brave elderly people invent for the emotion to live longer and in a less dark 

way, to the point of becoming now what they never dared to be. 


Espasa (Spanish)


Alejandro Palomas (Barcelona, 1967) has a degree in English Studies from Universitat de Barcelona. He obtained an M. A. in Poetics at the New 

College of San Francisco. He has contributed to several newspapers and has translated writers such as Katherine Mansfield, Gertrude Stein, 

Willa Cather and Jack London. He is the author of several novels which have gained him a devoted readership, both in Spain and several foreign 

countries, among which we can find Tanta vida, translated into several languages, or El secreto de los Hoffman, which was a finalist at the 

Torrevieja Novel Award in 2008. In 2011 Palomas has been finalist of the Primavera Award with his novel El alma del mundo. 

IMAGE NOT 

AVAILABLE 

F 

EL CIELO QUE NOS QUEDA (Our Heavenly Sky) 

When old and grumpy Mencía and her daughter Lia travel from Menorca to Copenhagen to celebrate 

Christmas with Ines, Bea and little Gala, little can they imagine these four generations of women of 

the same family that ahead of them are forty eight unforgettable hours of unveiled secrets, healing 

truths, overcome tragedies, laughs and tears. Forty eight unforgettable hours livened up with Mencía’s 

untiring sense of humour, the coming to scene of Morris (the Chinese secret boyfriend of Bea, who will 

have to win Mencía’s most unlikely approval), and the announcement of some surprising news that will 

represent a new unexpected future for all of them. 

El cielo que nos queda is the story of five brave women who, between comedy and drama, take the 

most of life and share it. 



Suma (Spanish)


Alejandro Palomas (Barcelona, 1967) has a degree in English Studies from Universitat de Barcelona. He obtained an M. A. in Poetics at the 

New College of San Francisco. He has contributed to several newspapers and has translated writers such as Katherine Mansfield, Gertrude 

Stein, Willa Cather and Jack London. He is the author of several novels which have gained him a devoted readership, both in Spain and several 

foreign countries, among which we can find Tanta vida, translated into seven languages, or El secreto de los Hoffman, which was a finalist at 

the “Torrevieja Novel Award” in 2008. 

F 

TANTA VIDA (Life and Again) 

Seven women bound by love, sadness, hope, loss and affection. Few people know about the Lighthouse 

Island but for those who finally reach its shores, life will not be the same again. Mencía knows it. Six 

other women stay by her side as they travel together to the Lighthouse. Menorca is there, waiting for 

them. They will share secrets and love, pain and pleasures, glances in silent and never-ending words. 

Their voices are alive, generous, and unique. An intense atmosphere surrounds them, as they slowly 

reach the island while their thoughts go backwards and pass through all their lives. 

Rights sold to: Martínez Roca (Spanish) 

Columna (Catalan), Record (Brazilian) 

Znanje (Croatian), Berlin Verlag (German) 

Signatuur (Dutch), Neri Pozza (Italian) 

Mladinska Knjiga Beograd (Serbian)

Isabel Palomeque 

Isabel Palomeque (Barcelona, 1980) is a nurse and has a post graduation on Ultra Violet Index. She worked at the Cardiovascular Centre 

Sant Jordi until she was affected by a stroke that left her thirteen days on a coma. The disease changed her life completely, but thanks to her 

perseverance she currently works as a dancer at the company of Jordi Cortés. In her autobiography Alta sensibilitat she shares with the reader 

her astonishing experience from nurse to dancer. 

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ALTA SENSIBILITAT (High Sensibility) 

I was a vocational nurse and had started to have my first experience with UVI. I was very enthusiastic 

until, during a dinner with my workmates, something I never thought would happen to me occurred: I 

felt a sudden headache, my right arm and leg got blocked, I got speechless, felt to the ground convulsing 

and lost consciousness. I woke up thirteen days later. I did not understand anything, recognized 

nobody, was surrounded by tubes and connected to a machine which made me breath. I remember the 

glacial coldness of the sheets. 

This is a part of the story of Isabel Palomeque’s life, the real story of a twenty-four year old girl who, 

due to a terrible ictus, had to struggle for life and learn to enjoy each day as if it was the last one. 



Plataforma (Spanish)

Carmen Paz 

Carmen Paz has a degree in Teaching, specialized in English Philology by the University of Murcia. She has a diploma in Yoga, that gives her the 

title of “teacher of Hatha Yoga, Meditation and Human development and transpersonal” by the World-Wide School of teacher of “Yoga Solar”, 

of the RedGFU A.C. Thanks to her experience in the world of energies she felt keen in energy therapies. From 1993 to 1995, she travelled to 

USA in order to study Chystal Healing, at The Crystal Academy of Advanced Healing Arts, with Katrina Raphaell in Hawaii, USA. A humanist 

writer, researcher of the Feminine Spiritual Traditions and facilitator in the association “Círculos de Mujeres”, she is now attending a course on 

Feminist Theology and her biggest commitment is to awake, re-establish and spread the awareness about the “Sacred Feminine”. In 2010 she 

published her book La bendición de ser mujer with Ediciones Obelisco. 

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LA BENDICIÓN DE SER MUJER (Blessed for Being a Woman) 

The emergence of the Feminine is an indisputable reality. Women currently are awakening from a long 

slumber that has lasted centuries and becoming more aware of themselves and their presence in the 

sociocultural life of our planet. 

Carmen Paz invites us to delve into the feminine tradition that was silenced for centuries and consciously 

cooperate in this paradigm shift, where women actually reach and embrace their full humanity 

in all areas of life. 

A book dedicated to sow the seeds of change. A space to find some answers, but especially from where 

to learn to develop our own questions. A meeting place for all those women who truly are looking to 

themselves and are willing to meet. 


Obelisco (Spanish)

Carlos Peramo 

Carlos Peramo (Barcelona, 1967) left school when he was seventeen and held various jobs, including carpenter, storekeeper, worker in an 

assembly and truck driver. He learned how to be a writer in the Escola de les Arts Escrites, a school created by Mercé Company in 1993 and 

where he is a teacher of novel and short stories techniques since 1997. He is author of novels for children, YA and adults. Media vuelta de vida 

is his most recent novel. 

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MEDIA VUELTA DE VIDA (Half Way of Life) 

1986. In a city in the outskirts of Barcelona lives twenty-two year old Ángel Daldo, nicknamed “Little 

angel of death” by his friends. With school failure as his only patrimony and without any other horizon 

in his life but carrying on as a labourer wherever he may get a salary, he resigns himself when his father 

gives him an occupation. After some months, while he tries to endure a complicated relation with 

his girlfriend Belén, Ángel discovers that Tanco Linares – a fifty six year old workmate – has hidden 

his past as a tyrant of Francoist Spain for almost three decades. The fascination that death has always 

caused in Ángel intensifies before Linares’ personality and his experiences in the scaffolds of jails, and 

they both get involved in a distressing relation that will drag them to the darkness of the human being 

and of themselves, in a one-way trip where the best and the worst of each one of them will come to 

surface, to the ultimate consequences. 


Bruguera (Spanish)

Allan Percy 

A coaching expert, he also writes personal improvement manuals. Currently he gives advices to a publishing house in self-help matters. He 

travels around the world in order to find new ideas for his books. He is the author of many books like Conecta con la felicidad (Luciérnaga, 2007), 

La magia de los gatos (Luciérnaga, 2009), Nietzsche para estresados (Debolsillo, 2009) and La escafandra del optimista (Debolsillo, 2009). His 

most recent books are El buen tiempo del corazón (Zenith, 2010) and La cura del lobo estepario (Luciérnaga, 2011). 

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EL BUEN TIEMPO DEL CORAZÓN (The Good Weather for the Heart) 

Our inner climate is a delicate biosystem in which sometimes the sun shines, but other days problems 

hang over us like heavy clouds. To the broad and radiant horizons follow rains with which we get rid 

of old sorrows and clean the glass we look at the world with. To modulate these changes that affect 

us, the experiences of others help us to discover the wit, wisdom, hope and strength of spirit. In this 

warm and wonderful book, Allan Percy brings unique contributions and testimonies from emotional 

meteorologists like Álex Rovira, Pilar Jericó, Eduardo Punset, Mariana Caplan and Dr. Estivill, among 

many other wise people, who bring their vision from their own discipline and help us understand our 

emotional changes to finally reach the good weather of the heart. 


Zenith (Spanish)

Allan Percy 

A coaching expert, he also writes personal improvement manuals. Currently he gives advices to a publishing house in self-help matters. He 

travels around the world in order to find new ideas for his books. He is the author of many books like Conecta con la felicidad (Luciérnaga, 2007), 

La magia de los gatos (Luciérnaga, 2009), Nietzsche para estresados (Debolsillo, 2009) and La escafandra del optimista (Debolsillo, 2009). His 

most recent books are El buen tiempo del corazón (Zenith, 2010) and La cura del lobo estepario (Luciérnaga, 2011). 

NF F 

LA CURA DEL LOBO ESTEPARIO (The Cure of the Steppenwolf) 

Hermann Hesse (1877-1962) has been a spiritual reference for all generations for a century. Orientalist, 

a writer of initiation, poet, novelist, painter and guru of millions of people despite himself, in his 

extensive work we find insights and advice that are extremely valuable to enjoy a simple, wise and 

essential life. Allan Percy has selected in this inspirational book, the best pills of wisdom for readers 

seeking guidance and serenity in their daily life and contrasts them with situations we find in our daily 

lives in order to implement “The Cure of the Steppenwolf”. We have, therefore, an original manual that 

leads the reader to the roots of a human being in harmony with others and himself. 



Montserrat Rico 

Montserrat Rico (Barcelona, 1964) collaborates in publications on the popularization of History. Her activity as lecturer is vast and well known 

for her ability to talk to the public with historic rigour while entertaining at the same time. She participates in events at Libraries in order to 

promote reading. As a poet she has made her own recitals and her poems have been recited for other poets. She has directed and collaborated in 

several radio programmes. She is the author of the short story Un pingüino a la deriva, her first try as a children writer, and of the novels Cartas 

a Lucrecia (Plaza&Janés, 2000), Bajo un cielo púrpura (Edaf, 2004) La Abadía Profanada (Planeta in Spanish and Columna in Catalan, 2007), 

each of them well seen by critics. With her last novel, La Abadía Profanada, she has arisen the interest of national and internacional press. 

F 

PASAJEROS DE LA NIEBLA (Passengers in the Mist) 

In September 1930, Aleister Crowley, an English magician, appeared in Lisboa unexpectedly. Expelled 

from Italy by Mussolini himself, Crowley was well known for being very sinister. His detractors thought 

of him as the most evil person in the world; they said he worshiped the devil and practiced black magic. 

The reason for his visit to Portugal was to meet Fernando Pessoa, a man of his same political beliefs, 

with whom he kept secret correspondence. The magician’s name was soon in the newspaper’s headlines 

and in police records: after an enigmatic chess game at Sintra, occult Crowley disappeared in the 

cliff of Boca do Inferno, leaving behind a cryptic suicide note. 


Ediciones B (Spanish) 

Planeta (Portuguese) 

Enneagon Press (Russian) 

Pasajeros de la niebla is based on a true story and the author presents a hair-raising interpretation of 

it: what if Crowley’s reason to visit Portugal was another one? Montserrat Rico takes us to the magical 

Sintra of the 19th century in a mysterious and enthralling plot.

Hilario J. Rodríguez 

Hilario J. Rodríguez (Santiago de Compostela, 1963) has a degree in English-German Philology and Spanish Philology. He has taught language 

and literature in Spain, Republic of Ireland, Great Britain, Portugal and USA. He handles the cinema department at “Revista de Occidente”; 

he collaborates at “ABC”, “La Vanguardia”, “Dirigido por”, “Clarín”, “Rock de lux” and “Imágenes de actualidad”; he is associate director of 

magazine “Versión original”; and he also works as consultant and programmer of several Film Festivals. He has written several essays about 

cinema, films and film’s directors. He also wrote a short stories book entitled Aunque vuestro lugar sea el infierno (Ediciones de la Mirada, 

1998) and the novel Construyendo Babel (Tropismos, 2004). 

F 

EL OTRO MUNDO (The Other World) 

There was a time when everything was fast and the car radio was on. We drove at night with the windows 

down, humming along the songs, I was always out of time, but nothing seemed to matter too 

much, just the speed, the wind, empty roads, the music... Until one day we entered a tunnel. It was endless. 

We tried to leave it because suddenly we were shaken with fear. We had a son, money, comfort, 

and nothing made us have fun. It was then when we decided to try our luck in America. And this is the 

story of what happened there: how a black Sudanese returned from the past, and his history is mixed 

with that of W. G. Sebald, of forgotten shirts and mailboxes full of letters to a stranger, a writer who 

tries to start his new novel but cannot because the reality around him is rebelling against fiction... 


Ediciones del Viento (Spanish)

Teresa Roig 

Teresa Roig (Igualada, 1975) has collaborated in several publications since she was young. She has published in different media, and some of 

her short stories compilations have won literary prizes. Having worked for several years in the audiovisual field, she finally decided to write 

as well. With L’herencia de Horst, her first novel, she won the Setè Cel de Salt Award in 2008 and showed herself as a new promising voice in 

Catalan. With Pa amb xocolata she showed that she is able to blend historical thriller with human stories, where the reader can identify himself 

with anonymous heroes. Her most recent novels are El primer dia de les nostres vides, published in Catalan by Proa and winner of Roc Boronat 

Award 2010, and El blog de Lola Pons, published in April 2011. 

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EL BLOG DE LOLA PONS (Lola Pons’ Blog) 

Dolores is a shy, funny, hesitant, naive, lazy and scatty girl who lives in the Raval neighbourhood in 

Barcelona. She has a hyponcondriac mother, a father as good as gold, a gay brother who works as 

a broker in London, and a senile grandmother who is, in fact, the most sane of them all. Even if she 

tries to be always in a mood, she does not have a longterm partner, nor a job that she really likes, and 

neither is she happy about herself on a physical or pshychological level… 

As it happens, on the day of her thirty-third annivesary, she gets entangled in an existential quandary 

of no return. She decides to make some changes and… be born again, nine months later, transformed 

into Lola, her virtual alter-ego. She will have the support of her best friends and of all resources at 

reach she can find. But life is not a bed of roses. Who said that being happy was an easy thing? Not to 

mention finding your true love… 


Columna (Catalan)

Teresa Roig 

Teresa Roig (Igualada, 1975) has collaborated in several publications since she was young. She has published in different media, and some of 

her short stories compilations have won literary prizes. Having worked for several years in the audiovisual field, she finally decided to write 

as well. With L’herencia de Horst, her first novel, she won the Setè Cel de Salt Award in 2008 and showed herself as a new promising voice in 

Catalan. With Pa amb xocolata she showed that she is able to blend historical thriller with human stories, where the reader can identify himself 

with anonymous heroes. Her most recent novels are El primer dia de les nostres vides, published in Catalan by Proa and winner of Roc Boronat 

Award 2010, and El blog de Lola Pons, published in April 2011. 

F 

EL PRIMER DIA DE LES NOSTRES VIDES (The First Day of Our Lives) 

Daniel is an accountant and a fifty-year-old father who lives overwhelmed by routine. One Monday, 

waiting for the metro to go to work, his grey existence strikes him down. He has hit bottom. Then he 

sees a special girl at the platform and, without knowing why, he follows her. Apparently, she and Daniel 

have nothing in common, but together they will spend twenty-four hours adrift in the city, apart 

from the rest of the world. A day that will change them forever. Teresa Roig has written an unconventional 

love story that puts the emphasis on the second chances that life offers. Because every ending 

opens up a new beginning. And because only when you realize you are lost you can find your way back. 

Winner of the Roc Boronat Award 2010. 


Edicions Proa (Catalan)

Agnès Rotger with Nadia Ghulam 

Agnès Rotger (Badalona, 1973) is a journalist and editor. She has worked at different Catalan media and as an editor she has directed the 

imprints Pòrtic and Mina. At present she writes and combines journalistic collaborations with editorial commissionings. Nadia Ghulam was 

born in Kabul in 1985. Despite the enormous difficulties in the Afghanistan of civil war and subsequent Taliban regime, she always kept the love 

of poetry and oral literature, and as soon as possible, she began her studies. She now lives in Europe, where she continues to study. El secret 

del meu turbant, winner of the 43rd Prudenci Bertrana Award jointly with Agnes Rotger as coauthor, is a novel based on her life and her first 

contact with the publishing world. 

F 

EL SECRET DEL MEU TURBANT (The Secret of My Turbant) 

Under his dark coloured turban he is conducting today’s prayer at the mosque. Everybody respects 

him and listens to him with attention, even if his voice sounds thin and his body is small. He is a good 

Muslim, generous and upright: he does not allow for given things to be told in front of him if these may 

sound offensive to God. What his friends and neighbours do not know is that under these clothes there 

is not a young man with good contacts, as they all believe, but a girl who trembles every time a Taliban 

approaches her, afraid that her secret comes unveiled. She has chosen self-renouncement and risks 

her life to save her family. 

This is an impressive story about the courage, intelligence, fortune and suffering of a young girl in 

search for her place in this world. 

Rights sold to: Erein Argitaletxea (Basque), 

Columna (Catalan), Sperling & Kupfer (Italian), 

Edições ASA (Portuguese), Planeta (Spanish)

Elena Rubio 

Elena Rubio Navarro (Madrid) is a psychologist specialized in business consulting and personal development and a NLP practitioner master. She 

has done numerous contributions in the psychology of art both in companies and in the field of health. She is a professor in many Masters from 

several graduate business schools in Spanish and Latin American universities: ICADE Esden, UPSA-Bolivar, Universidad Pontificia de Comillas, 

among others. She is the author of several books on management and self-help. She collaborates in many media such as: El País, El Mundo, 

Emprendedores, Nueva Empresa, Aqua, etc. Elena Rubio has been awarded the First Prize of Journalism and Communication of the College of 

Psychologists in Madrid for her articles in El País. 

IMAGE NOT 

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ABRE TU BOCA Y EXPRIME UN LIMÓN (How to Develop Your Skills through Your Mind 

and Language) 

Abre tu boca y exprime un limón brings to the reader the knowledge necessary to develop his personal 

skills through Avant-garde Psychology, including: working with 

our personal shadow (the unconsciousness); the structure of the mind; fields of life 

(where all our activity takes place); the fields of influence that we generate in our environment, the 

collective unconsciousness, the conditioning that determines our lives. How can we transform our 

reality inter things through mental training. 


Zenith (Spanish) 

Booket (Spanish/ pocket)

Albert Salvadó 

Albert Salvadó (Andorra la Vella, 1951) is an industrial engineer and writer. His works include children’s stories like La imaginación del niño 

(1982; Xerric-Xerrac Prize), essays like Uno entre un millón (1991) and novels like El enigma de Constantino el Grande (1997) which was 

shortlisted for the 1st Nestor Luján Historical Novel Prize. He has also collaborated in works such as Escritores de aquí (1996). He has written 

for various press publications since 1986. His works have been translated into several languages. 



Roca (Spanish) 

F 

UNA VIDA EN JOC (A Life at Stake) 

Victor Pons, a working-class man, works as the Head of Security of the Casino La Rebassada, which was ostentatiously 

inaugurated in Barcelona on July 15th 1911, with the aim to become the new emblem of the city. 

Due to the responsibilities of his post, Pons will face all the harshness of covet and madness generated at game 

tables, but this will also be the scenery where he will find the promise of a great love: the one he will feel for 

Carla Torres, a young bourgeois. Pons will quickly make headway in his career, thanks both to the political and 

labour instability in the Barcelona of the time and to a fortuitous fact: the death of a client of Italian origin at the 

casino that seems to be a suicide. To avoid a scandal, and because of the wishes of the casino management, 

Victor will get rid of the corpse. However, the suicide will turn out to be a murder and Pons will see himself 

involved in a detective plot full of mafia threats that will oblige him to unravel the mystery of what really happened, 

without realizing that there is a life at stake: his own. The story takes place in the Barcelona of the turn 

of the century, which oscillated between the social conflicts and the Modernism explosion, and the opposition 

between old and new, a historic framework of which Albert Salvadó makes another character in his book.

Eva Santana 

Eva Santana was born in Badalona in 1972, in a stormy day of July, full of thunders and flashes of lightning. She studied jewellery, but she 

worked in many different places, until she decided to enter the literary world. Now, she works as a writer and translator. 

She has published, among other titles, Els maldecaps de l’Emi Pi, published by Columna in 1995; Lluny de casa, per fi!, published by Columna, 

in 2005; Canviar de planeta, published by Columna, in 2007. 



F 

JA EN TENIM 30 (We Are Thirty Already) 

There’s nothing special about Jovita, except for her name. She is about to turn thirty and she seems to be 

living the same life than many other women of her age. Her friend Maria, going straight to thirty too, is 

going to live with a bugger she has met through the Internet, whom she thinks is a writer and who has not 

a single cent. Jovita and her friends don’t know how to advise Maria not to go live with him, so they decide 

to seek information about the guy, wishing that, in the meantime, something will happen that will make 

Maria change her mind. These friends are: Joana, married and with two children of her own and two of his 

husband, with the living-together and housewife problems; Rita, unquenchable and without all the trouble 

that her other friends seem to have; and Raquel, trying to find a couple without noticing she does, always 

hiding it from others because of her fears. All of them are Jovita’s friends, and all of them are trying to save 

Maria from the wrong man, while they try not to fall down themselves. A squatter that lives of renting her 

own flat, an ecologist that doesn’t want to undertake, and a couchsurfer from Israel that has settled in their 

sofa and a secret admirer from Facebook are some of the characters that will turn Jovita crazy.

Care Santos 

Care Santos was born in Mataró, Barcelona, in 1970. She is author of more than thirty books, from young adult novels, to short story books. 

She has received several prizes, as the Narrative Prize of Ciudad de Alcalá de Henares, the Ateneo Joven Novel Prize, the Alfonso de Cossío 

Short Story Prize, the Carmen Conde Poetry Prize. She was shortlisted for the Primavera Novel Prize with La muerte de Venus (Espasa- 

Calpe, 2007). She has also obtained several Spanish prizes for young adult novel. Among her titles, we can find Aprender a huir (Seix Barral, 

2002), Intemperie (Páginas de Epuma, 2005), Solos (Pre-textos), Los ojos del lobo (SM, 2004), El anillo de Irina (Edelvives, 2005) or Dos lunas 

(Montena, 2008). Published in March by Planeta, Habitaciones cerradas is her most recent novel. Care Santos’ books have been translated into 

several languages. 

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HABITACIONES CERRADAS (Closed Rooms) 

HABITACIONES CERRADAS takes the reader to the to the heart of a burgueoise family in the Modernist 

Barcelona of the 1930s, where he will be witness not only the personal and family stories of three different 

generations, but also of the social, historic, political and even artistic transactions of the time. 

He will discover , through the pages of the book, gradually revealed with much artcraft by the author, 

some astonishing secrets from those times, that have been zelously guarded for many years, and that 

will only come to light at the present time, in a contemporary plot that reads parallel to the historic 

one, both of which will surprisingly link at the end. A real page-turner that has already captivated 

readers both in Spain and in foreign countries. 

Rights sold to: Planeta (Catalan, Spanish), 

Grasset et Fasquelle (French), 

Salani-GEMS (Italian), Wereldbibliotheek 

(Holland), Planeta (Portuguese), 

Cappelen Damm (Norwegian) 

Bonniers (Swedish)

Care Santos 









Espasa Calpe (Spanish) 

Baumhaus (German) 

F 

CRYPTA (Crypta. A Devil in Love) 

“The truth, my beloved Natalia, is that it would take volumes and volumes to crumble my adventures 

on Earth and in any case interesting things would remain in the inkpot. You know the world is ours, the 

Dark Ones. The others have never existed. Everything is a story, a fantasy invented by mortals. Life is 

ours, like death and the universe and all that existed and will exist.” 

Devil Eblus is not going through his best moment. Degraded by his worst enemy and deprived of his 

power, he must win back his former position. At the same time, he must fight against the strangest, 

most annoying and embarrassing fact that ever happened to him: he has fallen in love. And not just 

with anyone: Natalia, a sixteen year old mortal who does not pay him any attention, the most ambitious 

and unscrupulous human being he has ever known... 

In Crypta, Care Santos gives us a unique story that blends fantasy with dark humour to describe a 

terrible world that is very similar to ours. Written with a perfect style by one of the most read writers 

among the youth in our country, this novel will not leave anyone indifferent.

Care Santos 








Rights sold to: EDHASA (Spanish) 

Droemer Knaur (German) 

Vertigo Edizioni (Italian) 

F 

LA MUERTE DE VENUS (The Death of Venus) 

After having inherited her great aunt’s mansion, pregnant Mónica decides to move in with her partner. 

Restoring works have just started when strange phenomena take place: terrible smells in the living 

room, sudden drops of temperature, noises and strange lights, and then, a marble bust of Venus 

appears. Venus, the Love Goddess, silently becomes a constant presence in the house, with her lost 

and distant look. 

It is the beginning of a new, dramatic adventure for Mónica. She will enter into a parallel world made 

of secrets never told, among the dead and the living: a new existence that will take her to another life 

in another era, where a terrible crime has been perpetrated. 

La muerte de Venus is a hypnotic novel lingering among the gothic genre, so wonderfully expressed 

in English and American literature but still unknown to many Spanish writers. Care Santos reaches 

points of unforgettable intensity while her prose easily flows.

Esther Sanz 

Esther Sanz was born in Barcelona In All Saints Day in 1974. She has a Degree in Journalism, has collaborated with women magazines, and 

has worked as an editor in an imprint of practical books. A passionate reader of romantic novels, she always dreamed of becoming a writer. One 

day she came across the idea for a book, and she finally decided to write it, encouraged by her two sisters, and very especially by an unexpected 

inner strength: that of her daughter, who grew inside her alongside the book. 


Urano (Spanish and Catalan) 

F 

LOS SIETE SOLES DE LA FELICIDAD (The Seven Suns of Happiness) 

Olivia is a young editor of self-help books. The success of her books has been modest to date and her 

boss keeps putting pressure on her to find a bestseller that will contribute to the imprint’s solvency. 

Only then she will be finally promoted, and she will displace Malena, the other editor who also competes 

to get the post. 

But her life will change drastically when she gets to acquire The Seven Suns of Happiness, a book that 

has sold millions in the US. The author is her admired Jon Sunman, an attractive and American guru 

who suddenly announces his visit to Barcelona. As the young editor lets lady-killer Sunman seduce 

her, a new player comes to the love board: Javier, the translator of the book, and a staunch enemy of 

the author. 

Trapped in a passion triangle of divine and human nature, our protagonist will dive into a big adventure 

that will lead her to self-determination and, very probably, to her love for life.

Sílvia Soler 

Sílvia Soler i Guasch (Figueres, 1961) has been working for Catalunya Ràdio as a journalist since 1987. She is the author of a series of short 

stories Arriben els ocells de nit (1985) and several novels, like El centre exacte de la nit (1992), El son dels volcans (Columna, 1999) and 

L’arbre de Judes (Columna, 2001). She is the co-author of Ramblejar (1992), a journey through the history of Les Rambles, Barcelona’s most 

famous street. In 2003 her novel Mira’m als ulls won the Fiter i Rosell Award, a prestigious Catalan literary prize, which has been recenty 

translated into English by Parthian Books with the title Look me in the eye. 39+1, released in 2005, has been published in Catalan, Spanish, 

Italian, Brazilian, Portuguese (Portugal and Brazil), and Japanese. Her most recent novels are Enamorar-se és fàcil si saps com (2007), Petons 

de diumenge (2008) and Una família fora de sèrie (2010). 

F 

UNA FAMíLIA FORA DE SÈRIE (An Outstanding Family) 

Una família fora de sèrie is basically a love story… with some constraints. Oriol and Maria are no longer 

young and they have a past, children, ex-partners and families with their own particularities. But 

despite all that they are willing to raise a new family. It will be a big family, an xxl family, an extra large 

family, whatever you may want to call it. Anyway, it will be a different and extraordinary one, an outstanding 

family. To accomplish their aim, the protagonist couple counts on the unexpected interference 

of a peculiar character: aunt Antigua, who decides to intervene in the future of her most modern and 

sceptical niece. The inheritance of this old relative will change Oriol and Maria’s already complicated 

life. But at the end, as everyone knows, love always prevails… 



La esfera de los Libros (Spanish)

Xulio Ricardo Trigo 

Born in Betanzos in 1959, Xulio Ricardo Trigo is a novelist and translator from Portuguese. His works include La desaparición de Evelyn (1995), 

Fado (Premio Joanot Martorelll, 1999) and El somni de Tàrraco (2009). He has been awarded the Ausiàs March award for his poetry, as well 

as Miquel de Palo, Maria Mercè Marçal and Vicent Andrès Estellés. He has translated versions of X.M. Álvarez Cáccamo (Foc Blanc, 1994, for 

which he received the Premio Cavall Verd for poetic translation), Ana Hatherly, Mario Cesariny, Yolanda Castaño, José Cardosa Pires, Francesc 

Parcerisas o Eugenio de Andrade. His ideas on literature can be found in the diary L’extensió del temps (1997). He has contributed to various 

media such as Avui, El Temps, Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, La Vanguardia, and El Periódico de Cataluña. El port del nou món is his most 

recent novel. 

IMAGE NOT 

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F 

EL PORT DEL NOU MÓN (The Harbour of a New World) 

After the severe crisis of the mid-fifteenth century, Barcelona is opening to the new times that mark 

the advent of the Renaissance. But the city’s commercial development is difficult without a port where 

ships can dock with guarantees. King John II in 1477 asks to an Italian specialist, Stassi of Alexandria, 

to carry out the difficult task of building a safe harbor. Stassi, port engineer and a pupil of Leonardo da 

Vinci, looks for a solution to in the technical advances of his time. The curiosity and dedication of an 

old cartographer of Barcelona, Luís Esquiva, will be a valuable aid to understand the old treaties and 

deepen their teaching. Years later, another character will join the men who want the development of 

Barcelona: Marcelo Roqueta, a young man that finds in the dreams of Luís Esquiva an escape for his 

adventurous spirit. 



Temas de Hoy (Spanish)

Rafael Vallbona 

Rafael Vallbona (Barcelona, 1960) teaches journalism at the Universitat Ramon Llull and is a collaborator to several newspapers, magazines, 

radio and television programs. He has been a writer since the day he published his first poetry book Inventari de Límits, in 1980. He has written 

novels for young readers like Pis d’estudiants (Columna, 1993) and Recanvis Luna (Columna, 1998) for which he received the “Premi Columna 

Jove” Award in 1997. As for the adult readership, he wrote novels as Riure a Barcelona (EUMO, 1990) and El concert de Paris (Pòrtic, 1990) 

which was awarded the Premi La Piga Award for erotic novel. 

NF 

L’ENCANT DE FER 50 ANYS (The Charming Fifty) 

Are you tired of the mortgage you have been paying for fifteen years, and of having –still!- fifteen more 

years ahead to cancel it? Do you prefer comfort and distinction instead of a fast car? Do you find more 

pleasure in thinking about early retirement than in power? If you answered yes to these questions, it 

might be because you have reached, or are about to reach, the delicate line of the age of fifty. 

In this casual and realistic chronicle, Rafael Vallbona portrays the only sentimental moment in which 

life has the exact meaning it deserves: turning fifty, that moment when one, feeling wiser through 

knowledge and experience, begins to understand that things are just the way they are, and leaves aside 

complexes to accept that he or she is not that bad after all. 


Edicions 62 (Catalan)

Coia Valls 

Coia Valls has a degree in Child Education and Special Needs Education, and she is also a Speech Therapist and a Pedagogue. She is Editorin-Chief 

of the digital newspaper “Tarragona Literaria” and Assistant Director at the Escola de Lletres de Tarragona. She is also a theatre 

actress, participating, for instance, in the play “In-sensible”, that has been performed all throughout Spain,being a co-author of the text; other 

performances of hers are dramatizations of poetry texts. As a writer, she has published short stories in collective books with which she has won 

several awards, as well as two novels for the adult public (La princesa de Jade, Aetheria) and two books for the younger readers (Marea de 

lletres que maregen, L’Ombra dels oblidats). 

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F 

AETHERIA 

In the beginning of the Middle Ages two women with very different beliefs are in Gallaecia land. Aetheria 

belongs to a community of women who have made religion their way to escape the demands of the 

nobility, but is secretly part of the Priscillianist movement. Irene is the daughter of a Roman senator 

that, with his family being besieged by the Christians who now control the power, decides to serve the 

cause of paganism. Symmachus, governor of Rome and spokesman of a noble class which continues 

to boost the banner of paganism against the official thesis, tries to convince the Emperor that the 

greatness of Roman civilization is rooted in ancient beliefs. The aim is to gather evidence to prove it 

and block the advancement of Christians. Upon hearing that the community of women from Gallaecia 

holds the Cato Treaty, Symmachus sends Irene with the intention of stealing the book and present it 

as testimony to the greatness of the old beliefs. In a context of social and religious struggles, Aetheria, 

aiming to travel to the Holy Land seeking his freedom, and Irene, who wants to avenge her family, will 

discover that not so many things separate them.

Coia Valls 

Coia Valls has a degree in Child Education and Special Needs Education, and she is also a Speech Therapist and a Pedagogue. She is Editorin-Chief 

of the digital newspaper “Tarragona Literaria” and Assistant Director at the Escola de Lletres de Tarragona. She is also a theatre 

actress, participating, for instance, in the play “In-sensible”, that has been performed all throughout Spain,being a co-author of the text; other 

performances of hers are dramatizations of poetry texts. As a writer, she has published short stories in collective books with which she has won 

several awards, as well as two novels for the adult public (La princesa de Jade, Aetheria) and two books for the younger readers (Marea de 

lletres que maregen, L’Ombra dels oblidats). 

F 

LA PRINCESA DE JADE (The Princess of Jade) 

A novel about love, risk and adventure, about leaving your homeland in search for your dreams. A colour 

kaleidoscope, where glasses not only allow light to get through and draw shapes, but also sensations, 

aromas and textures. A place where every feeling is present and can create a changing landscape. 

The Princess of Jade personifies the spirituality and knowledge of ancient China, from contemplation 

and respect for the essential; but, in spite of her apparent fragility, she is a strong and determined being. 

Yu is a sixteen-year-old girl that meets love for the first time. Grown up with ideals of millenary traditions, 

she suddenly feels her existence turn upside down. Generous, smooth and perfumed by the subtlety 

of unknown flowers, Yu is also enigmatic, like the jade stones she is so fond of. 

A story of the contrast between what is given to us and the discovery of other realities, of other worlds, 

either unknown or that we had forgotten. 



Suma (Spanish)

Jil Van Eyle 

Jill Van Eyle (Hilversum, The Netherlands, 1967) grew up with two adopted siblings: the daughter of a Dutch prostitute abandoned when she was 

six months old, and a South Korean boy whose parents were killed in the war when he was one. 

Abandoned by his own father at the age of eight, he started working as a newspaper delivery boy at fourteen and continued working while 

studying Economics during the evening. After holding the post of Marketing Director of Eurotunnel and setting up a company that went bankrupt 

in 1996, the birth of a daughter with hydrocephalus turned his life and way of thinking upside down. Since 2000 he has dedicated most of his time 

to “Teaming”, as well as working as a personal assistant to Frank Rijkaard, who has worked actively in this project. 


Martínez Roca (Spanish) 

NF 

CÓMO DEJÉ DE SER UN IDIOTA (Not an Idiot Any Longer) 

The author of this book could well be considered a model not to follow: he kept away people who wanted 

him on their side, the company he created went bankrupt, he let himself be seduced by luxury and 

money, did not treat well his employees, and he ambitioned one only thing before becoming thirty: to 

buy a Porsche (even if he had to break all the rules with this aim). 

However, the birth of his daughter Monica, affected by a very serious condition called hydrocephalus, 

was a gift that changed his life. Jil van Eyle, a Dutchman living in Spain for more than ten years, and a 

former PA to Frank Rijkaard, offers a hard and moving testimony full of optimism. He tells how Monica 

helped him to become a better person, to think of others, to be happy having little and, very especially, 

to help people by creating a global project called Teaming, which has achieved unprecedented worldwide 

success through small donations. 

A wonderful story of someone who had everything, then lost it all and, despite that, could succeed, be 

happy himself and make others happy.

M. Vilarich 

M. Vilarich is teacher in the Northwestern University in the programs Spanish, Comparative Literary Studies and European Studies. She has a 

degree in History by the Barcelona University and a PhD by the New York University. She has published the book Borrowed Words and several 

articles about the imagination in novels (specifically in the French and English novel). Her current studies deal with fantasy literature related to 

death and urban graveyards, from Poe to Dickens and Dostoievski, or Bram Stocker and Narcís Oller. 

F 

A L’ENTORN DE LES RUÏNES (Around The Ruins) 

The discovery of the ruins of a Roman villa from the 4th century in a district in Barcelona and the 

excavation works carried out in the place unleash a political confrontation that will bring to light a 

layered time suggesting continuities and discontinuities between present Barcelona and the ancient 

Roman villa. The ruins are the centre of a plot of inheritance and heirs, and the setting where the main 

characters will meet desire, anxiety and disappointment. 

Two love stories mark a game of new beginnings and ends, in which desire is mixed with the celebration 

of the present, thus disappearing very rapidly, and with the fascination, fears and hopes of 

the future. This is a contemporary story tinged with melancholy, where the city, full of personal and 

collective defeats, yields to the possibilities of desire. 


Barcanova (Catalan)

Ramon Vilaró 

For twenty years Ramon Vilaró (Vic, 1945) was El Pais’s foreign correspondent in Brussels, Washington and Tokyo. Later he co-directed the 

economic newspaper Cinco Dias in Catalonia, and currently contributes to La Vanguardia and Cambio16. He has published many essays, 

including EEUU, más allá de las hamburguesas y los pantalones vaqueros and Japón, más allá del video y de las geishas, the book Nueva 

York y Washington and the historical novel Dainichi, la epopeya de Francisco Javier en Japón. He has also written and directed documentaries 

for television. 

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NF F 

SOL NACIENTE (Rising Sun) 

This book traces the relationship between Spain and Japan from the arrival of Saint Francis Xavier in 

the sixteenth century to the present day. The core of this study is the presence of Japan and its relationship 

with Spain, including the period during the Second World War, when Madrid was the centre of 

Japanese espionage for Southern Europe and Franco proposed sending a Blue Division to Asia to fight 

alongside Japanese troops. 


RBA (Spanish) 

The book moves between the essay and travel writing. Throughout his train journeys, the most popular 

means of transport in Japan, the author talks to people he meets along the way, both about their 

personal experience and different aspects of the Japanese society, from tradition and modernity, to 

gastronomy and the arts, and assorted topics of interest to the visitor reading about what he or she 

could come across in a visit to the Land of the Rising Sun.

Borja Vilaseca 

Borja Vilaseca (Barcelona, 1981) is a journalist specialized in personal development and leadership based on values and has a Master of 

Leadership and Coaching by the Universidad de Barcelona. Among other publications, he collaborates in El País Semanal (EPS) and the financial 

supplement Negocios, both of El País. He currently teaches at the Center Koan in Porta22 (Barcelona Activa), at Fundació Àmbit and in different 

Masters of Coaching and emotional intelligence. In 2008 he published his first book, Encantado de conocerme. Comprende tu personalidad a 

través del eneagrama (Plataforma). His book El principito se pone la corbata (Temas de Hoy), launched in 2010, reached its fourth edition only 

three months after publication. His new title, El sinsentido común, promises to be even more successful than his last one. 

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NF F 

EL SINSENTIDO COMÚN (Non Common Sense) 

Our existence is built on a society that conditions us to think and behave in a certain way. This is the 

reason why most of us take on an egocentric and materialistic lifestyle, designed to satisfy our own 

interest. However, our work, consumption, image and entertainment do not get to fill our emptiness. 

In entering the midlife crisis, many of us stop fooling ourselves, and assume that our life has no purpose 

or meaning. The need for change arises then, together with the motivation to know ourselves better. 

The truth is that through this transformation process we begin to question the believes with which 

we have created our false concept of identity. And as a consequence, we get connected with our true 

essence, from which we start to build a life addressed to the service of others, leading our existence 

for the common good. 


Temas de Hoy (Spanish)



Leadership and Coaching by the Universidad de Barcelona. Among other publications, he collaborates in El País Semanal (EPS) and the financial 

supplement Negocios, both of El País. He currently teaches at the Center Koan in Porta22 (Barcelona Activa), at Fundació Àmbit and in different 

Masters of Coaching and emotional intelligence. In 2008 he published his first book, Encantado de conocerme. Comprende tu personalidad a 

través del eneagrama (Plataforma). His book El principito se pone la corbata (Temas de Hoy), launched in 2010, reached its fourth edition only 

three months after publication. His new title, El sinsentido común, promises to be even more successful than his last one. 

NF 

EL PRINCIPITO SE PONE LA CORBATA (The Little Prince Wears a Tie) 

Things are not going well at consulting firm SAT: people are unhappy, the boss is mean to his subordinates, 

unrest and distrust rule the place... until the arrival of Pablo Principe, a new director of workers 

and values who revolutionizes the company and the lives of his employees with his innovative ideas 

about self-knowledge, personal development and emotional intelligence. This character, optimistic 

and enthusiastic, based on the Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, teaches them to appreciate 

the deep change companies can undergo only through the awareness of their personnel’s true potential, 

if used for creative, sustainable, meaningful and necessary purposes. 


Temas de Hoy (Spanish) 

Best Seller (Brazilian) 

Vallardi (Italian)



Leadership and Coaching by the Universidad de Barcelona. Among other publications, he collaborates in “El País Semanal” (EPS) and the 

financial supplement “Negocios”, both of “El País”. He currently teaches at the Center Koan in Porta22 (Barcelona Activa), at Fundació Àmbit 

and in different Masters of Coaching and emotional intelligence. In 2008 he published his first book, Encantado de conocerme. Comprende tu 

personalidad a través del eneagrama (Plataforma). His most recent book is El principito se pone la corbata (Temas de Hoy), which has reached 

its fourth edition only three months after publication. 


Plataforma (Spanish) 

NF 

ENCANTADO DE CONOCERME (A Pleasure to Meet Myself) 

Who am I? What am I afraid of? What drives me in life? Facing adversity, why do I react in similar ways? 

Because of our social context, we tend to answer such questions by turning to the outside. However, by 

focusing on things that are beyond our control, we feel even more confused. Perhaps, then, we should 

go back to basics – back to ourselves. This book is conceived as an introspective mirror, an invitation to 

stop searching for answers ‘elsewhere’ and concentrate on our own selves. In A pleasure to meet myself 

Borja Vilaseca offers an introduction to the Enneagram and its usage. Designed as an instruction 

manual on human behaviour, the book aims to help us uncover the dynamics of our personality. After 

all, if we want to be at peace with others, it is common sense that we must first be at peace with ourselves. 

The behaviour patterns described in the Enneagram are based on nine psychological models 

and can help us uncover why we are the way we are. It can also help us become who we can really be. 

It is all about dominating our mind as opposed to being dominated by it. Approaching our own essence 

and growing into a better version of ourselves.

Albert Villaró 

Albert Villaró, lives in Andorra, though he was born in La Seu d’Urgell (Catalonia), in 1964. He has a degree in Geography and History and is a 

veteran press writer and author of short stories and four novels: Les animes sordes; L’any dels francs (Nestor Luján 2003 prize for historical 

novel), published by Columna; Obaga published by la Magrana in Catalan, RBA in Spanish, and in French by Tinta Blava; and Blau de Prússia 

(Carlemany Award, 2006) which received great reviews in newspapers and magazines. Film rights have been sold to Spanish producers and 

Italian translation rights to FBE Edizioni. 

F 

LA PRIMERA PRÁCTICA (The First Teaching Practice) 

Two stories share the same setting and re-echo each other from their respective time. Two requiems 

in two hearts. 

Winter 1642. During the Catalan Revolt at the Reapers’ War, troops of Colonel Le Bougon Lagrau occupy 

a small town on the mountains. Judge Peremàrtir Estraguès and Father John Areny, choirmaster of 

the cathedral, have to face the consequences of an accident that disrupts the life of the city. 

Summer 1991. The Course on Antique Music in Lagrau leads a colorful group of students from around 

the world to go to the city. Roger, who is from the country, plays the viol and Caroline, from Switzerland, 

is an alto. They live nine days of a rare intensity, accompanied by the music of the old masters of 

the chapel, some personal concerns and a growing passion. 

A lively and vibrant novel about music, creation and desire. 


Columna (Catalan)

Vicenç Villatoro 

Vicenc Villatoro (Terrassa, 1957) is a journalist and novelist. He began his literary life with the novel Evangeli gris, winner of the Sant Jordi prize 

in 1981. Among his titles are País d’Itàlia (1983), Els anys a la ciutat (1986), Les illes grogues (1987), Entre batalles (1987), Titànic (1990), Hotel 

Europa (1992), Memòria del traïdor (1996), La claror de juliol (1996) and La derrota de l’àngel (2004). Villatoro has received many literary 

awards, among them Ciutat de Barcelona (1987), Document (1991) and Carlemany (2004). His most recent book, Tenim un nom, won the Ramon 

Llull Award 2010. He has collaborated with many media, like Avui, El Periódico, El País, BTV, Catalunya Ràdio and Com Ràdio. Moon River is his 

most recent novel. 



F 

MOON RIVER 

Waiting for the result of a test, Pedro sits on a bench in the half-empty gallery on the third floor of the 

Hospital Clinic in Barcelona on a Sunday morning. It is September 11; a day that seems to be aimless. 

“Can I sit here?”, asks him a woman with a stylish brown hair and eyes, close to her fifties like him, and 

wearing the distinctive white coat patients wear. 

This happenstance is the beginning of a day of talks and approaches where they both discover and 

nourish their mutual attraction based on subtle similarities and the need for warmth and companionship, 

and the fear of loneliness and death. While he has left his partner, Mary is married and has two 

children, but she feels lonely to face the test that will let her know, on the following day, if the cancer 

that she already believed to have overcome has reappeared. 

With a seductive narrative guided by this casual encounter, Moon River is a heartwarming story about 

dedication and love to avert death.

www.sandrabruna.com 

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Fax + 34 93 415 86 25 

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