Beloved
£14.99
Remei, the main character of Beloved, is a prestigious illustrator in her fifties who considers herself an attractive, happily married mother. Yet one evening, sitting in the back seat of the family car, she clearly predicts that her younger husband, a principal violinist in an orchestra, will fall in love with the second violinist, the woman sitting beside him, as they head to their home to rehearse. Neither Remei’s husband nor the young woman have realised this yet. But Remei has. This devastating certainty leads Remei, a determined woman who since childhood has had to fight to survive, to a harsh realization of what it is to grow old inside. She must suddenly accept the vulnerability of marital love, the addictive dependence of motherhood, and the expiration date on her artistic career.We experience the progressive emotional and physiological transformation of a mature woman who fights against age, a woman that when she goes jogging, has a constant inner monologue in which she welcomes us into her intimate and confessable space. We go from laughter to the sharpness that lays bare the pathetic side of life, to the point of leaving us feeling like stone statues, facing a story that unfolds with coldness and determination when it comes to recreating the anguish generated by the few alternatives that the protagonist has left.Empar Moliner makes fiction out of the purest reality: the ease with which the most stable and consolidated life can be shaken. After all, even the greatest stability hangs by a very fragile and almost invisible thread.Empar Moliner displays her literary talents in a moving and unforgettable story about friendship, the passage of time, forgiveness and the secret rawness—that’s never spoken of and always down-played—of menopause.
Empar Moliner
Empar Moliner (Santa Eulalia de Ronsana, Barcelona, Catalonia, 1966) is a Catalan writer and journalist. Her works have been translated into Spanish, German, English and Polish. In 2015 she won the Mercè Rodoreda Prize for Tot això ho faig perquè tinc molta por. She recently won the Ramon Llull Prize in 2022 with the novel Benvolguda.