Rosa Montero

It's nighttime at the Barcelona port, and a security guard is on his rounds when his German Shepherd suddenly stops dead in its tracks, desperately sniffing at a shipping container. Upon reaching it, the Mossos d'Esquadra discover a woman inside, curled up in a fetal position, unconscious, and severely dehydrated. She bears a gash on her temple, burns on her face and body, and has no recollection of her identity or her native language, but she is miraculously alive. While she recovers at the Hospital Clínic, an attempt is made on her life. Inspector Anna Ripoll, an expert in human trafficking, appears to have unearthed her identity and a potential address: Alicia Garone; 19, rue du Chariot, Lyon. In the French city, Inspector Erik Zapori is grappling with internal affairs investigations related to corruption and prostitution. What better escape than to travel to Spain and assist in solving a case? Little does he know that this may turn out to be the most intricate one he's ever encountered.

Rosa Montero, one of the most beloved and award-winning authors in the Spanish language, returns to the world of crime fiction, this time accompanied by Olivier Truc, winner of the Quais du Polar Prize, the most prestigious French award in the detective genre.

“One novel, four hands, and a transnational challenge. Welcome it is. [...] Like a dance, quite beautiful.” ABC

“Black chemistry by four hands.” El Periódico

“Montero's contribution turns La Desconocida (The Unknown Woman) into an intriguing study of pain and identity, two of the author's favorite themes.” Zenda Libros

An unclassifiable hybrid work, a mixture of essay and fiction, along the lines of her successful book La ridícula idea de no volver a verte.

After a lifetime devoted to literature and reflection on her own idiosyncrasies, Rosa Montero embarks on this journey in search of traits shared with other writers. Are writing and madness the two sides of the same coin? Is there something in the minds of writers that sets them apart from everyone else? Are there people, whether professional artists or not, whose brains work differently from the majority? To answer these questions, the author draws not only on the memoirs and biographical studies of the literary greats, but also on neuroscientific research, her own experience and a few snippets of imagination. The answers make up a brilliant, poetic, moving and informative text that takes us to the very heart of reality, to the meaning of death and life.

“An incandescent, wise, brilliant book.” Héctor Abad- Faciolince, El Espectador

“For the interest of people who inhabit the circles of creativity and oddity, Montero's book will incite and deeply move the majority of those who read it.” Claudia Piñeiro, Infobae

“A book that absorbs and grips the reader.” Juan José Millás, El País

“A perfect synthesis and the culmination of the best of Rosa Montero's work [...] one of the literary milestones of 2022.” Manuel Rodríguez Rivero, Babelia, El País

“A book to get people to read books again.” Juan Cruz, El Periódico de España

“A perfect read.” Nadal Suau, El Cultural

“Those of us who have felt strange, awkward, painfully sensitive, extravagant, the riders of an unbridled imagination, enthusiasts with sudden descents into the gloomiest discouragement, will find a mirror and an explanation in this book.” Irene Vallejo

“An enthralling essay where reality and fiction take each other by the hand in perfect conjunction, as if it were a narrative dance.” Inés Martín Rodrigo, ABC

 “A documented review of the disorders, psychoses and irrationality that a major part of the population suffers from, and that all those authors that Montero has studied for decades have endured. A full-frontal exploration of her own mental health.” Berna González Harbour, El País Semanal

“Un essai-roman passionnant autour de la folie des artistes, terrible mais nécessaire.” Transfuge

“Très spécial, profond et ébouriffant, vital…” La Tribune Dimanche

“Rosa Montero est au sommet de son art” Paris Normandie

“Puissante ode à la déraison salvatrice !!!” Baz’art

“Un voyage qui n'a rien d'une folie.”  La Vie

“Elle se dévore comme un polar cette étude sur la folie, allant des bizarreries aux troubles psychiques avec, dans le rôle de l’enquêtrice, la romancière elle-même qui, en matière de manies et de crises de panique, sait de quoi elle parle. […] Jamais triste ou sombre, le livre, au contraire, se veut une invitation joyeuse à explorer le sens profond de la vie à travers nos démons.” Isabelle Potel, Madame Figaro

A moving story of love and atonement. 

Looking out of the window of a train during a brief stop at the station of a god-forsaken town in the middle of nowhere, run-down and absolutely ugly, a passenger notices a sign advertising a flat for sale. Pablo, 54, a prestigious architect from Madrid who is traveling to give a conference, decides that this hellhole is a good place to abandon himself to the pain that is eating him away. Without a second thought, Pablo leaves the train – and his previous life – and pays for the apartment in cash, a pigsty he settles into with just the basics, without informing his friends or his employees and with the sole purpose of disappearing. His plans do not include meeting a woman as alien to his world as Raluca, a supermarket cashier and painter who loves kitsch artwork, and who is indestructible, despite how badly she has been treated by life. In her, Pablo will find the strength to start from scratch – as a supermarket shelf filler – and learn to face up to a family past cut short by evil in its purest expression.

 “An existentialist novel that combines large doses of mystery with a philosophical approach. It condenses and explores all the complexities and contradictions of life. [...] Absorbing.” Andrés Seoane, El Cultural

“Her writing provides an antidote for these times. A new novel that reminds us that life is a gift.” Gema Veiga, Elle

“Delightful, full of depth.” Juan Carlos Cubeiro

“Dynamic and tragicomic.” Karina Sainz Borgo, Zenda

"Luminous x-ray of the human soul." Ana Rodríguez-Fischer, Babelia, El País

“It is full of light and it harbours a gift for the reader. [...] a prodigious story about happiness, redemption, survival, family and, of course, luck.” Siglo XXI 

“Good Fortune is one of Rosa Montero's best books […] In it, everything fits together and everything flows. Written in natural, warm, magnetic prose… […] It is a novel about the love of life, which reminds us that despite everything there are reasons to believe in human beings and not to lose hope. A brilliant, luminous novel about the joy of being alive.” Eva Cosculluela, Heraldo de Aragón

“A novel that takes a stand for good and good people, although there is tragedy in these pages, and darkness too, where the author manages to open a crack to let the light in.” Laura Barrachina, El ojo crítico (RNE 1)

“Intimate. [...] Montero takes us on a ride towards the fresh start and optimism that we so badly need. [...] A story about second chances, [...] a tale of intrigue and mystery that invokes joy and new beginnings.” Elena Méndez, La Voz de Galicia - Fugas

“Delicious, dynamic, funny, deep and exact.” Sonia Fides, El Asombrario

“An entertaining, communicative story, written with the courage of someone who dares to play freely with conventional realism and which, like the typical novels, adds the invention of a couple of unforgettable characters. In these particularly uncertain times the song to life in Good Fortune is a source of comfort [...].” Santos Sanz Villanueva, El Cultural

“We've been waiting all summer for this novel.” Literatura Noticias

“Less Prozac and more narrative. [This book] is a bit of a pain reliever in these changing times: life and joy are possible, one can fight and press on, and dreams sometimes come true.” Manuel Pedraz, Historias de papel (Radio Nacional)

“Rosa Montero surprises us again with this incredible work, whose underlying message is that beyond each defeat there is always a new beginning.” María Puig, Vanidad

Madrid, 2110. Bruna Husky, detective and replicant, faces the most transcendental case of her life: to save the man she loves.

Unlike humans, who too often forget their existence is limited, replicants know the exact date their mechanisms will shut down. Bruna Husky’s remaining lifetime is three years, three months, and sixteen days, time too valuable to waste on unimportant things. That’s why Bruna will risk everything to find Paul Lizard, in a desperate race against time. The man she loves has disappeared without a trace, and Bruna fears he’s fallen into the hands of an international terrorist group who are kidnapping cops to slit their throats on chilling live television.

This third novel starring techno-human detective Bruna Husky is a fastpaced adventure in a bleak world where today’s most dire predictions have come true, while small gestures of solidarity and sacrifice provide a glimmer of hope for the future of the human race.

A dangerous and appealing literary meditation about the body and desire at an adult age.

Single and childless, Soledad has turned sixty, which she calls “the age of the dogs”. But in her case, what many would consider a normal life, or even a chosen one, is symptomatic of a personal anomaly that she spends days and nights torturing herself about. Fate hasn’t been good to her either: her sister, Dolores, is confined to a psychiatric hospital, and her lover, Mario, has returned to an apparently happy marriage with his wife. Her job is the only thing Soledad can cling to: the curatorship of a peculiar catalogue of outcast writers that she’s preparing for an exhibition. And something undeniable since she was a girl: bodily desire, and the need to feel like a lover woman. Adam, a gigolo of Russian origin, will come into her life to satisfy that desire, leading to a dangerous relationship between him, with his dark past, and her, a woman obsessed with madness and age spots, but determined to pull out all the stops one last time.

In La carne (The Flesh), Rosa Montero plays with psychology and uses agile, vivid, crystal-clear writing to show how the body can go from being a shameful prison to an authentic engine for our desire to keep on living.

“A novel about love. About love that’s given and needs to be received. Rosa Montero has written a novel about people wounded by the terror of loneliness and never being loved. [...] A quest to join literature and life, imagination and trembling.” J. E. Ayala-Dip, Babelia

“An enjoyable story, as bitter as it is emotional, written with naturalness and ease, simple but profound.” Santos Sanz Villanueva, El Cultural de El Mundo

“Profoundly vitalist. This is a story against defeat at the moment when victories seem impossible.” José María Pozuelo Yvancos, ABC Cultural

“A novel that’s intimate, fun, honest, and above all able to drag you into a plot devoid of certainties, evils and security.” Berna González Harbour, Zenda

“One of Rosa Montero’s best novels. Because of how well she dissects the feelings and dangers of those laws that govern desire, and desires [...] Read it and we can discuss it later, if you like. We’ll have plenty to talk about.” Ovidio Parades, Huffington Post

“Rosa Montero’s prodigious imagination and her narrative skill [...] ensure the novel will be enjoyed and read compulsively, in one sitting.” Mujer Hoy

“An erotic but profound novel, that speaks of desire and love later in life.” Woman

“A mature, complex book that is emotionally, ethically and philosophically charged behind its apparent simplicity.” Ricardo Gil Otaiza, El Universal

“This latest work by Rosa Montero is such a joy to read that it gives the false impression of being light reading when it’s quite the contrary, and is actually full of lead [...] It’s not easy to create such a wide-ranging, believable character, so easy to visualise with her obsessions, fixations, misfortunes, and boundless need to love and be loved.” Aurora Cruzado Díaz, Turia

· Review, El Cultural, 16/09/2016

· Review, El País, 20/09/2016

· Interview, El Cultural, 14/09/2016

· Interview by Juan Cruz, El País, 05/09/2016

"With Bruna Husky, Rosa Montero has created one of the deepest characters of her long career." Ricard Ruiz Garzón, El Periódico

Bruna Husky has 3 years, 10 months, and a few days to live. Like all replicants, she was created with a preset expiration date. Unlike the rest, she is obsessively tortured by this idea. The detective protagonist of Lágrimas en la lluvia (Tears in the Rain) returns in this second book to take on a new case: the disappearance of a millionaire’s corpse. At first it looks like a simple theft, but Bruna uncovers the involvement of a powerful fundamentalist sect that forces its members to live in primitive conditions, on the fringes of the technological era. Bruna doesn’t know that she’s entering a dangerous, clandestine dirty war serving interests that spread disease and death in exchange for economic profit.

“A magic box of treasures that come out”

When Rosa Montero came across the diary that Marie Curie began writing after the death of her husband, she found that the story of this fascinating woman who met the challenges of her time inspired a heady mix of ideas and feelings.

Inspired by Curie’s extraordinary life story, Rosa Montero has constructed a story halfway between a personal memoir and the story of us all, an analysis of our life and times and a look deep within. It speaks of coping with grief, relations between men and women, the joy of sex, of a good death and the beauty of life, of science and ignorance, of the power of literature to save and the wisdom of those who have learned to live life to the full with a touch of lightness.

In the words of the author, “This is a book about life... heartfelt and joyful, sentimental and playful.”

“One of Rosa Montero's most exciting books.” Fernando Aramburu, author of Homeland

“A highly radioactive book that springs from lonely passion and desperate admiration.” Le Nouvel Observateur

“Rosa Montero demonstrates a total mastery of transforming the most personal issues into works of art.” Le Figaro

“Rosa Montero's voice is exuberant and bursting with vitality.” Maarten Steenmeijer De Volkskrant

“A beautiful title for a book in which death is as powerful as love.” Daria Bignardi

Death is inevitable. Especially when you have an expiration date. As a replicant, or “techno-human,” Detective Bruna Husky knows two things: humans bioengineered her to perform dangerous, undesirable tasks; and she has just ten years on the United States of Earth before her body automatically self-destructs. But with “anti-techno” rage on the rise and a rash of premature deaths striking her fellow replicants, she may have even less time than she originally thought.

Investigating the mysterious deaths, Bruna delves into the fractious, violent history shared by humans and replicants, and struggles to engage the society that fails to understand her—yet created her. The deeper she gets, the deadlier her work becomes as she uncovers a vast, terrifying conspiracy bent on changing the very course of the world. But even as the darkness of her reality closes in, Bruna clings fiercely to life.

A widowed taxi driver, a doctor dissatisfied with his life, a suffered African prostitute and an addicted to alcohol middle-aged female biologist are the main characters of this urban novel in which not only the loneliness, alienation, terrorism, and serial murders, but also the life's little miracles so inherent in our contemporary apocalyptic trivial round are weaved.

Instructions for Saving the World is a story about the hope, exciting tragicomedy, filled with interesting human experiences whose character can be each one of us.

In the turbulent twelfth century, Leola, a young peasant girl, takes a dead warrior's armor to hide behind the mask of a man. This is the beginning of the dramatic voyage into the story of her life. It is an extraordinary journey into the unknown side of the Middle Ages. It is a fable that will move us by its sheer epic greatness, one of those books that is not read but lived, breathed, and tasted. Montero's novel is bursting with the power of a literary work on its way to becoming a classic.

A book about fantasy and dreams, about madness and passion, about the fears and doubts of writers, but also of readers. And, most of all, the passionate story of love and salvation of the author and her imagination.

“An outstanding work, both in its ideological and civic positions as in its literary skill to create a hybrid text, a blend of personal experiences and legends, of autobiography and fictionalized essay. ” Fernando R. Lafuente, ABC

“An engaging literary essay on the power of imagination and creative writing comprised of nineteen chapters in which the author discusses many topics in relation to the essential quality a good writer should have: the ability to imagine and create. A mixture of personal reflections, anecdotes, and literary references by one of Spain's top women writers.”

Medieval book editor Sofía Zarzamala never thought the past could burst into her life and drag her into the depths of hell. “I found you,” says the man’s voice on the phone. That’s enough for Sofía to dress in a huge rush and flee her apartment. Her descent into the city’s underworld alternates with her mysterious past. After twenty-four hours of chaotic experiences, light awaits at the end of the tunnel.

The Cannibal’s Daughter is an introspective view of the world, an exploration of one's self identity as related to person, relationships with partners and parents. These plots are cleverly intertwined in a story in which the main character, Lucia, tries to solve the abduction of her husband Ramon. Lucia explores her womanhood, her relationships with others and the meaning of one's self-identity.

Combining elements of the real and the fantastic, Beautiful and Dark (Bella y oscura) is written from the perspective of Baba, an orphaned girl taken to live with relatives in a neighborhood called El Barrio. Trying to cope with the mystery and violence of the adult world around her, she is drawn to the Lilliputian Airelei, who fascinates Baba with her fantastic tales that mix myth and memory.

"In her most thoughtful novel to date, Rosa Montero brilliantly combines intrigue and imagination with personal insight into human nature" Javier Escudero, World Literature in Review

"Beautiful and Dark…is a dramatization of the painful innocence of childhood when confronting the adult world, of the position of women, of love, of death, and of writing itself—the Beautiful and Dark writing that Rosa Montero has invented with intense and entertaining effectiveness in order to be loyal to her truth." Juan Antonio Masoliver Ródenas, La Vanguardia

"Beautiful and Dark synthesizes the mixture that comprises the book well—a mixture of sordid social realism, existentialist orientation, and the mysterious, magical terror that depicts the unknown from the mythifying, childish perspective of a girl, whose experiences are a metaphor for unfulfilled desires."  J.L. Martín Nogales, El Diario Vasco

Temblor (tremor or trembling), Spanish journalist-author Rosa Montero's fifth novel, manifests a continued interest in the themes present in her previous works: feminist issues and a concern for social justice in general, the relationship between the individual and society, death, and the difficulty humans have in communicating with each other. 

Near the end of Temblor, the protagonist Agua Fria (Cold Water) discovers the history of her world, a history that might well be the future of ours: a nuclear conflagration incinerates the surface of her planet, melting all life and manmade objects into crystals. The only survivors of the catastrophe are the inhabitants of orbital space stations who, when the planet becomes once again habitable, return to found a utopic, egalitarian, millenary society. This civilization eventually degenerates into the totalitarian, theocratic, maternalistic dystopia into which Agua Fria is born. This empire is experiencing not only a political decay, but an existential one as well: it has been many years since any children were born there, and a fog of nothingness is devouring vast areas of land. Adults are trained in the modo de mirar preservativo or preservative gaze, which they use to prevent the space or object observed from disappearing into the fog, but it is a battle they are losing. Agua Fria's heroic quest is to bring down the empire and save her world from nonexistence, two inextricably interdependent goals. 

Amado amo is a dark comedy about the world of work. It’s a novel about power, but power in lower-case letters, everyday and perfectly recognisable: the kind exercised by companies and suffered by salaried workers, laughable power measured by office size or the number of times the boss stops to talk to you. César Miranda, a corporate employee, is a man in crisis trying to survive the storms and torments of frenzied competitiveness. His misfortunes paint an implacable but hilarious picture of the ridiculous society in which we live.

A novel about losers, light wells, rear windows, express trains, dumps frequented by unsavoury characters, urban Robinson Crusoes, princess brides chasing a papier mâché mirage. An original novel with an audacious, dynamic style, it comes across like a bolero sung by Pedro Almodóvar, a poem written by Joaquín Sabina.

In La función Delta, the second novel of the best-selling Spanish author Rosa Montero, the real world is as unmapped and treacherous as ever for her countrywomen, but more universal concerns impinge. The Delta Function explores a woman's fears of being abandoned, of being alone, and of dying. A unique double narrative structure throws into relief time's effect on her self-identity, sexuality, and relations with others. Readers will be inspired to confront and rethink their own version of the world around them. Kari Easton is a Spanish instructor at Portland Community College and Yolanda Molina Gavilán is an instructor of foreign languages at Tokyo American Community College.

Journalist Montero's important first novel is set in the mid-1970s, a time of immense transformation in Spanish society. The oppressive Fascist state has been dismantled following the death of Franco, and traditional gender roles and stereotypes are giving way. The book follows Ana, a 30-year-old single mother living in Madrid, and a group of career women as they negotiate the uncharted waters of equality. Flashbacks showing what it was like before the transition only serve to heighten the sense that beneath the surface, despite outward changes, much remains the same. Men still act out traditional roles. Women are left confused as to how to behave in the midst of this social flux.

A story published in the collection Cuentos del mar (Sea Stories), compiled by Mario Delgado Aparaín (Ediciones B, 2001) and republished by Siruela in the book Los cuentos de la esfinge (The Stories of Sphinx) (2003). The book includes stories by the following authors: Mario Delgado Aparaín, Ramón Díaz Eterovic, José Manuel Fajardo, Mempo Giardenelli, Rosa Montero, Alfredo Pita, Hernán Rivera Letelier, Antonio Sarabia and Luis Sepúlveda. In nine extraordinary tales, nine great Ibero-American writers evoke the multiple facets of an inexhaustible theme that has fed literature since its origins, and continues to do so with the same strength and variety on both shores of the Spanish-speaking world.

A story included in the collection La España que te cuento (The Spain I Tell You) (audio book), an attempt to tell the story of today’s Spain through a collection of literary texts and the vision several recognised writers have of reality. La España que te cuento is not comprised of only big events, like those shown on the pages of newspapers, although some of the stories do discuss subjects that make news, such as terrorism, uncontrolled urban development, and oil spills.

Extravagant, modern, misunderstood and sensitive are some of the attributes of these "warrior women" that Rosa Montero exalts with her usual freshness and narrative skill. The Brontë sisters, George Sand and Agatha Christie: profiles of passionate women in whom, according to the author, "No matter how strange they seem, we can always recognise ourselves. And that’s because each one of us contains all lives."

Ensayo publicado dentro de la antología I love NY. Diez autores en busca de una ciudad. Nueva York vista a través de los ojos de Rosa Montero y otros de los más grandes escritores del momento en que se publicó el libro, como Antonio Gala, Terenci Moix, Rosa Regás, José Luis Sampedro, Maruja Torres y Manolo Vázquez Montalbán.

Cuento publicado en el volumen colectivo Cuentos del mar, compilado por Mario Delgado Aparaín (Ediciones B, 2001), reeditado por Siruela, en el libro Los cuentos de la esfinge (2003)

Incluye relatos de los autores: Mario Delgado Aparaín, Ramón Díaz Eterovic, José Manuel Fajardo, Mempo Giardenelli, Rosa Montero, Alfredo Pita, Hernán Rivera Letelier, Antonio Sarabia y Luis Sepúlveda.

El mar encantado de las sirenas y el trágico mar de los naufragios, el mar de todos los veranos, el mar sólo imaginado de quienes viven tierra adentro, los siete mares de piratas y corsarios, el mar lujoso de los yates privados, el mar de la aventura, el sacrificado mar de los pescadores y el mar apenas recordado de una travesía de la infancia...

Nueve grandes narradores iberoamericanos evocan en nueve extraordinarios relatos las múltiples facetas de un tema inagotable que ha nutrido la literatura desde sus orígenes y que sigue alimentándola con la misma fuerza y la misma variedad en las dos orillas del mundo hispánico. 

La escritora participó en esta antología (dentro del proyecto 'Terminemos el cuento'), que recoge ocho cuentos de otros tantos escritores, todos ellos ganadores del I Premio Internacional de Literatura.

A sad and alcoholic man in search of "a woman to live and to die with, to love and to grow old with," and her, a girl who feels invaded by "the other one," the new woman in her father’s life: an ugly woman who finds any means to feel beautiful. Once again, Montero shows the luminous and selfish side of the soul through stories with a common ground: the complexity of human relationships. Those who have had lovers and/or enemies will identify with these short stories, which are for enjoying and to reflect upon.

El puñal en la garganta se inaugura con una narradora que contempla una fotografía con la imagen congelada de su propia pasión. Es el pasado de una relación amorosa y, a la vez, el punto originario de la modulación erótica que se despliega a través del texto. La foto, al igual que los dedos que la sostienen, está manchada con un polvillo blanco, rastros del veneno destinado al amante, en esta carrera contra el tiempo que libran los protagonistas. Amor y muerte en el viaje desde el éxtasis al odio, itinerario existencial de la pareja humana, en la propuesta de Montero. Publicado en el volúmen colectivo Relatos urbanos.

Doce relatos de mujer (con once autores) es una recopilación de cuentos que ofrece, dentro de las limitaciones que impone una breve antología, una muestra significativa de otras tantas narradoras que comenzaron a publicar a partir de 1970. Pertenecientes a distintas generaciones y ámbitos culturales, la mayoría de estas escritoras trabajan en el periodismo, la crítica o la edición. Aunque difieran entre sí por su temática y por su técnica narrativa, los doce relatos muestran algunas características comunes y revelan, como afirma la compiladora y prologuista de la presente antología: «la lucha personal y no mimética con el texto, la aventura individual, la búsqueda del camino y el espacio propios».

Edición especial de uno de los libros fundamentales de Rosa Montero. Una obra pionera en la reivindicación del papel de la mujer en la historia a través de las biografías de sus protagonistas. Ilustrada por María Herreros.

«Este libro no es un libro solo para mujeres, de la misma manera que el feminismo no es solo cosa de chicas. Estamos cambiando el mundo, estamos destruyendo estereotipos milenarios, y es evidente que si se altera el papel social femenino, es porque también muda el papel de los hombres.»

«Incluye el texto original de Historias de mujeres, publicado hace veinticuatro años, y añade noventa nuevos pequeños retratos, una ojeada rápida desde la antigüedad hasta nuestros días que nos permite atisbar la compleja riqueza de la aportación femenina a la vida común. Porque hay una historia que no está en la historia y que solo se puede rescatar aguzando el oído y escuchando el susurro de las mujeres. La porción invisible del iceberg de protagonistas silenciadas empieza a emerger ahora, y tiene unas dimensiones colosales. Ha habido mujeres en todas las épocas haciendo cosas memorables. No hay un solo campo social, artístico o del conocimiento en el que no hayamos destacado. Y se trata de un pasado que nos han robado a todos.»

«Pero tenemos que hacer algo más que cambiar la visión del pasado: es esencial que también cambiemos la visión del presente. La manera en que nos miramos a nosotras mismas. El mundo, nos decían y nos decíamos, es así. Pero no. Resulta que el mundo no es así. El futuro está aquí, el futuro es hoy y lo estamos construyendo hombres y mujeres. Por primera vez estamos todos. Aunque, para ello, también debamos abandonar nosotras muchos prejuicios sexistas. Así es que, hermanas, abramos nuestras fauces de dragonas y escupamos fuego.» Rosa Montero

"Este es un librazo que da gusto tener entre las manos. Da gusto leerlo, a ratos, a trozos, y de arriba abajo. Porque es un libro sobre el cambio de piel, el cambio de piel que tenemos que hacer los hombres." Pere Sureda

Arabian Nights, The Regent’s Wife, The Heart of Darkness, Lolita and Frankenstein are some of the fundamental books in universal literature. Rosa Montero travels their pages and takes us into their different universes: from eroticism to tragedy, passions, scandals, monsters. “I never feel lonely if I have a book. It’s not just a cliché: for me, books are true talismans. I feel that if I have something on hand to read, I can handle just about anything. Books are an antidote to pain, a sedative for despair, a stimulant against boredom.”

“This work is the exact opposite of a hagiographic catalogue of perfect women. I never wished to do such a thing. Not only do I not believe that women should necessarily be admirable, but I also defend our right to be bad, just as foolish and arbitrary as men can be on occasion. I aspire to the true freedom of being, to accepting our full humanity, with all its lights and shadows. The biographies in this collection therefore include perverse and terrible ladies, such as Laura Riding and the deadly Aurora Rodríguez, mother of poor Hildegart. There are pathetic and deranged woman who can’t be role models for anyone, such as Camille Claudel and Isabelle Eberhardt. And there are others, complex and ambiguous, with admirable achievements and horrendous details, such as the great Simone de Beauvoir, a monumental thinker who also hid certain miseries. And all of them, bad or good, unhappy or happy, defeated or triumphant, are very uncommon people with fascinating lives. By the way, we’ve added one more biography to this edition, that of Empress Irene of Constantinople, another frightful woman, uncommonly powerful and evil.” Rosa Montero

The massacre of the Atocha lawyers, the attempted coup, the eve of the exodus in Riaño, the pope's tour of Spain, Miguel Ríos' highly successful Rock and Ríos tour, the trial for the disappearance of Nani, the ravages of drugs, those of terrorism... In the 1980s, Spain experienced an exciting era: the Transition. As this book shows, the years of the greatest collective attempt at democratization and modernization of the country were turbulent, kaleidoscopic, full of violence and hope at the same time.

Cuentos verdaderos (True Tales) brings together the chronicles and reports that Rosa Montero, one of the most important voices in journalism and literature of recent decades, published in El País during the period 1978-1988. Written mostly with the techniques of the best fiction and with the urgency to tell the news already in the past, they are read today as if they were stories. It is literature breaking through impetuously.

A selection of the most emblematic interviews from one of the giants of Spanish journalism.

Legend Award 2019 granted by the Madrid Booksellers Association

As Rosa Montero puts it, old interviews are like old photographs: time pooled, frozen. Reading them, one not only revisits bygone eras but also inevitably reflects on lost innocence.

With the author's characteristic journalistic intuition, immense analytical prowess, and extraordinary narrative talent, this volume brings together her most iconic interviews published in El País, offering us forty years of questions and answers that allow us to confront the truths that time has unveiled.

Thus, The Art of the Interview becomes a faithful reflection of history, the passage of years, and a testament to the career of one of our country's great journalists. The definitive proof that, more than a journalistic genre, the interview is an artistic expression where history, time, and truth converge in a delightful combination.

Las piezas escogidas están sacadas de entre aquellos trabajos que, por una razón u otra, han quedado más grabados en la memoria de la autora: entrevistas con Mario Vargas Llosa, Javier Marías, el juez Fernando Grande-Marlaska, Harrison Ford, Prince, Lou Reed o Margaret Thatcher, entre otros; reportajes sobre la matanza de Atocha o de la toma del poder del ayatolá Jomeini; artículos sobre ellas y ellos, sobre la vida y contra la muerte, y textos sobre las emociones en general.

Written and published in the daily newspaper El País over 20 years, the articles in this book show that in a changing world, certain realities remain constant. The author travels to Boston, Iraq, Australia, China, the North Pole, Alaska and the Sahara and focuses her attention on losers and marginalised people. In every line, she speaks to us of injustice, misery and inequality. A passionate and necessary work denouncing Side 2 of development.

There are loves that kill, as we see in each of the eighteen romances from different time periods that Rosa Montero narrates with the precision of a journalist and the passion of a storyteller.

Rosa Montero’s journalistic genius and sharp gaze are revealed once again in this selection of articles published in the daily newspaper El País. She addresses social problems, literature and politics, always with a profound, solidary perception of the female world.

Recopilación de artículos y entrevistas.

Collection of articles and interviews.

Un día Bárbara se despierta y ve que la gente se comporta de manera extraña: la asistenta pretende lavar la ropa con aceite, los peatones andan hacia atrás,... Bárbara y sus amigos deciden intervenir.

Rosa Montero recoge en esta historia las divertidas peripecias en las que se ven inmersos Bárbara y sus amigos. En esta ocasión tendrán que viajar a un mundo sorprendente en el que se ha extraviado...

Bárbara, una niña de hoy, dicharachera y despierta, vive aventuras desternillantes. En el colegio, en casa, en el parque o en la calle, este genial personaje encontrará motivos para hacernos reír... y pensar.

Una historia sobre los otros mundos que hay detrás del mundo que conocemos. Gabi es una niña imaginativa, pero vive a disgusto consigo misma. Se siente incomprendida por sus padres, hermanos y compañeros de colegio. Más aún: se siente poco querida. Enfadada y furiosa, Gabi desea que todos desaparezcan... Pero hay que tener mucho cuidado con los deseos, porque a veces se cumplen y son terribles. La realidad de Gabi se hace trizas y la niña se encuentra de repente en otro mundo paralelo, en un país extraordinario en el que las sillas hablan, las pelotas de tenis pueden ser animales feroces y las reglas de la vida se transforman. Con fino humor, burbujeante imaginación y maestría narrativa, Rosa Montero hace vivir a su protagonista una serie de vertiginosas aventuras que la conducirán de regreso a su realidad cotidiana, esto es, al punto de partida, pero convertida en una Gabi más sabia y más feliz.

Escribe con Rosa Montero es un cuaderno en el que el lector cambia su papel para convertirse en escritor. Siguiendo los consejos de Rosa Montero y llevando a cabo los ejercicios de escritura que propone, el lector/escritor podrá bucear en sí mismo para encontrar una voz narradora personal y plasmarla en textos de ficción.

«No se escribe para enseñar nada, se escribe para aprender.»
Rosa Montero

• Prólogo a Espejo roto, de Mercè Rodoreda, Barcelona, Seix Barral, 1978.
• Prólogo a Contrapunto de Europa. Teatro. Cantata en un acto, de Alfredo Castellón, Madrid, Ayuso, 1979.
• Epílogo a Die violette stunde, de Montserrat Roig, Alemania, Elster Verlag, 1980.
• Prólogo a Ana Karenina, de Leon Tolstoi, Barcelona, Círculo de Lectores, 1982.
• Prólogo a La celda de cristal, de Patricia Highsmith, Madrid, Debate, 1990.
• Prólogo a  A Montserrat Roig en homenatge, Barcelona, Generalitat de Catalunya, 1992.
• Prólogo a Las grandes entrevistas de la historia 1859-1992, Madrid, El País Aguilar, 1993.
• Prólogo a Invitación a la lectura 1985 - 1995, Zaragoza, Dirección Prov. del Mec, 1995.
• Prólogo a Escritoras españolas evocadas por sus contemporáneos, varios autores, Madrid, Espasa Calpe, 1997
• Prólogo a Cuentos de mujeres infieles, Buenos Aires, Alfaguara, Madrid, Suma de Letras, 2000.
• Prólogo a Mi viaje al bloqueo de Montserrat Roig, Barcelona, Plaza y Janés, 2001
• Prólogo a   Nada de Carmen Laforet, Madrid, Biblioteca El Mundo, 2001.
• Prólogo a Espejo roto, de Mercè Rodoreda, Barcelona, Seix Barral, 2002.
• Prólogo a Añoranza del Héroe, de José Ovejero, Barcelona, Ediciones B, 2002. 
• Prólogo a  Retrato de la felicidad, de Montserrat Cano, Madrid, Sial, 2003.
• Prólogo a  Los animales también lloran, de Raúl Mérida, Madrid, Ateles, 2002.
• Prólogo a  Lolita de Alicante, de Heinz von Eschwege, Barcelona, El Funambulista, 2004.
• Prólogo a   Memorias de una infamia, de Lydia Cacho, Barcelona, Debate, 2008.
• Prólogo a  Bichografías, de Fernando Krahn, Barcelona, Seix Barral, 2010.