Uk Panel's Choice - Year 2015

Panels are usually formed by six industry experts, amongst which there are publishers, translators, critics, booksellers, and a permanent representative from the British Centre for Literary Translation (BCLT). Panellists change every edition to allow as many people as possible to be part of the project. The panel meets twice and decisions are based on their knowledge, experience and intuition, as well as on reader’s reports. Members of the panel take their decisions with total independence.

The 2015 Edition panel was formed by: Nick Caistor (BCLT), Simon Smith (Peter Owen Publishers), David Mantero (Stanfords Bookshop), Lorenza Garcia (Translator) and Angel Gurria-Quintana, (Historian, journalist and literary translator). The following people have translated book summaries or written reports for this issue: Ana Fletcher, Alexander Ibarz, Catherine Mansfield, Christina MacSweeney, Daniel Hahn, Isabelle Kaufeler , Jennifer Arnold, Jessica Johannesson Gaitán, Laura McGloughlin, Lindsey Ford, Lise Jones, Lucy Greaves, Mara Faye Lethem, Miranda France, Richard Mansell, Suky Taylor and Judith Willis.

A big thank you to all of them for their enthusiasm and invaluable contribution to the 2015 Edition of New Spanish Books

  • Cabaret Biarritz
    Cabaret Biarritz
    Cabaret Biarritz
    Author:
    José C. Vales
    Agent: DOSPASSOS Agencia Literaria
    Georges Miet writes made-to-order mass-market stories for the French publishing house La Fortune, until one day his editor asks him for a 'serious' novel about the tragic events that shook the vibrant city of Biarritz fifteen years before, in 1925, during the summer season. The body of a local young woman was found tied to a mooring ring in the docks.
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  • DESPUÉS Y ANTES DE DIOS
    Before and After God
    Author:
    OCTAVIO ESCOBAR GIRALDO
    Publisher: EDITORIAL PRE-TEXTOS
    Topography, the circumstances of its foundation and prejudices determine every provincial city, as well as its piously hidden sins. Manizales is situated at over 2000 m above sea level, among Colombia's coffee growing mountains. Daughter of migrations and the civil wars of the 19th century, an old saying states that its 450,000 inhabitants are wedded to tradition, particularly the women.
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  • El silenci del far
    The Silence of the Lighthouse
    El silenci del far
    Author:
    Albert Juvany
    Agent: Cristina Mora Literary & Film Agency
    Anna is the librarian in Húsavík, a small Icelandic fishing village. When she receives a letter signed 'your father, who loves you', a door inside her which she believed was closed for ever suddenly opens and forces her to face her past and to redefine the certainties on which she has built her identity. Why did her parents abandon her? Who is she, really?
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  • Ese príncipe que fui
    That Prince I Was
    Author:
    Jordi Soler
    Agent: MB Agencia Literaria S.L.
    Prince or imposter? The impossible story of the last descendent of Moctezuma. In the 16th century, one of Moctezuma's daughters was abducted by a Spanish nobleman and taken to a remote Pyrenean village, where she gives birth to a boy and begins the insane line that will come to an end in the 21st century.
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  • Islàndia, somnis de riolita
    Iceland, Rhyolite Dreams
    Islàndia, somnis de riolita
    Author:
    Jordi Morell
    Publisher: RAYO VERDE EDITORIAL S. L.
    Lives crossed in a fantasy country. An unforgettable journey to Iceland. A watchmaker who has never left Sabadell and has to go to Iceland to fix and old clock. A young Scandinavian in search of a band to play the music he likes. A couple of geologists who go on their dream trip. A retired learned writer and a young journalist who had to interview him. A presumed victor.
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  • LA BUENA REPUTACIÓN
    A Good Reputation
    Author:
    Ignacio Martínez de Pisón
    Agent: MB Agencia Literaria S.L.
    Melilla, the nineteen fifties. Faced with the decolonisation of Morocco, the Spanish inhabitants of the Protectorate are forced to return to the Iberian Peninsula. North African Hebrews hope to stop this exodus by installing themselves in the recently created state of Israel. In this context of uncertainty, a middle aged couple worry about their future and that of their two children.
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  • La Dama de Europa
    The Lady of Europe
    Author:
    Ara Antón
    Publisher: Ediciones Nowtilus
    Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of England and France, travels to Castile in the company of her friend and confidant, the Druid Blédhri, who wants to leave a written record of the queen's eventful life.
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  • Les dones de la Principal
    The Women of La Principal
    Author:
    Lluís Llach
    Publisher: Grup 62
    Maria Roderich (The Old Lady), Maria Magí (The Mrs) and Maria Costa are three women who, throughout almost a century, have run La Principal, the most important house in the village of Pous, in the heart of the grape-producing region of La Abadia. Those three, grandmother, daughter, have made the vines flourish due to a series of transformations that have kept the business going.
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  • Malditos terricolas
    Goddamn Earthlings!
    Malditos terricolas
    Author:
    J. Olloqui
    Publisher: DIBBUKS S.L
    Old rock stars don't have it easy. And if anyone disagrees, tell it to Iván Uturría. At 40, his life is a disaster. He's been fired from a job he hates, his girlfriend has thrown him out and to top it all off nobody knows how to pronounce his surname correctly. Iván moves in with the only friends he has left, waiting for a solution from on high.
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  • Polifemo vive al Este. Viaje a la trastienda de Europa
    Polyphemus Lives the the East. A Journey to the Back Room of Europe
    Polifemo vive al Este. Viaje a la trastienda de Europa de Daniel Pinilla
    Author:
    Daniel Pinilla Gómez
    Publisher: Punto Rojo Libros SL
    Travel journalism returns. In the 21st century the planet has been mapped, measured, photographed and explained down to the last detail. Is finding Terra Incognito, savouring something approaching a discovery an impossible task? Not for an exceptional reporter who follows in the wake of the great masters of literary journalism, from Robert B.
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  • Pronto seremos felices
    Soon We Will Be Happy
    Author:
    Ignacio Vidal-Folch
    Agent: MB Agencia Literaria S.L.
    A Spanish commercial traveller is working at his company's branch office in eastern Europe, where he had lived during the troubled years of the 80s.
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  • UN ARBOL CAIDO
    A Fallen Tree
    Author:
    Rafael Reig
    Publisher: TUSQUETS EDITORES, S.A.
    In 1979, a group of friendly families comment on the return of an old acquaintance who will disturb the life in their residential estate. They all know one another due to having been active in anti-Franco political parties.
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