Barcelona Metropolis

We recently lost a way of life. It was buried under a mountain of letters and tears. We reminisce about it today in our conversations, it sneaks into the news subheadlines and, most of all, we dream about it. When we thought it was the last thing we could lose, it vanished. It went by the name of “a normal life”.

Sara, the lead character in La hija de un ladrón (A Thief’s Daughter), faces all sorts of challenges to achieve this way of life. She has been denied it. In the debut feature of Belén Funes, who we interviewed in these pages, Sara’s struggle is at street level, dodging obstacles and full of simple things and goals that are not far off. All this young mother wants is “a normal life”.

Barcelona too, a struggling and dynamic woman, is lost today in this search. Its Sant Jordi [Saint George’s Day] came and went in silence, with bookshops closed and with no roses on the streets. Fearful. But, fortunately, the city has its books to stop us feeling helpless, as can be read in the pages of Barcelona: títol provisional [Barcelona: Working Title], which is highlighted in this section. Nobody better than the authors who have written about it, from Rodoreda to Casavella, to bring us the heartbeat of this city, which today only dreams of having “a normal life” again.