A ferociously imaginative, polyphonic debut: amid the rugged beauty of the Pyrenees, the mountains' inhabitants - both human and non-human - bear witness to the tragedies that befall one family
Irene Solà Books
August 17, 1990
Irene Solà crafts prose that is both lyrically charged and deeply rooted in the natural world. Her work often explores the inner lives of women, weaving in elements of myth and folklore to create resonant narratives. Solà's distinctive voice offers a sensuous and evocative reading experience, capturing a raw yet beautiful connection to the environment. She stands out as a significant contemporary talent, celebrated for her original perspective and emotional power.
Beast is the first collection in English from award-winning Catalan poet Irene SolA, a darkly imaged, startling and lyrically precise exploration of gender, identity, sexuality and multiple forms of desire. "Beast enters incisively, like claws. It arrives with gleaming fur and stinking. It's a creature that spills its guts and impels the same from others--peoples, animals, limbs, foodstuffs, logical thinking, familial and sexual relations. In Irene SolA's scenes, there's nothing that isn't jammed together and insecure but what's constant is temperament. Beast comes swiftly, with a brazen laugh and cocked ears. Watch out when the lines pause for weird and possibly lethal detours. As SolA jolts, pulses and pushes off, she might leave the paths littered with bouquets or corpses." --Heather Phillipson "Sensuous, precise, and profoundly generous in their glimpses of strikingly private narratives, Sola's poems feel perfectly placed for the strange heat of our times..." --Ben Rivers "After drinking orange blossom water until she vomited everything that she had inside her, the writer and artist Leonora Carrington wrote that her stomach was 'the mirror of the earth'. SolA's Beast has a duckling in the belly; the words it makes her sick up are evil, brittle, full of feeling. I'm excited to see this translation from the Catalan unleashed on UK poetry." --Sophie Collins
BÈSTIA | BESTIE Bèstia („Bestie“) ist die erste Gedichtsammlung der preigekrönten katalanischen Bestsellerautorin Irene Solà in deutscher Sprache. Mit ihrem poetischen Roman „Singe ich, tanzen die Berge“ wurde sie weltweit in über 21 Sprachen veröffentlicht und für ihre besonderen Erzählperspektiven bekannt. Auch in diesem Gedichtband erzählt Solà in besonderen, in tierischen Perspektiven. Ihre Gedichte sind düstere, aufrüttelnde und lyrisch präzise Erkundungen von Geschlecht, Identität, Sexualität und vielfältigen Formen des Begehrens.
Hidden between distant cliffs, in some remote place visited by wolf hunters, bandits, ambushers, Carlists, sorceresses, maquis, rally drivers, ghosts, beasts and demons, the Clavell farmhouse clings to the earth like a tick. It is a house inhabited by women, and where a single day contains centuries of memories. Those of Joana, who made a pact to find a husband that inaugurated an apparently cursed progeny. Those of Bernadeta, whose eyelashes are missing, and who ended up seeing what she shouldn't. Those of Margarida, who instead of a whole heart has one of three quarters. Or those of Blanca, who was born without a tongue, and she doesn't speak, she just watches. These women, and more, are preparing a party today.
