Translation Rights TQE / The Wind From the East

With the parsimony of all outstanding works, with the tenacity and enthusiasm of one who loves what he does, Almudena Grandes gives us her fifth novel, undoubtedly the best so far. The reason is that it is governed by the most just ambition of all writers: that of trapping the world in a book, giving life to characters who we seem to know better than anybody else, organizing and making intelligent use of materials and destinies. Los aires difíciles has the breath of all great unforgettable novels, the overwhelming force of stories that we thought gone.

Juan Olmedo and Sara Gómez are two strangers that move into a building development on the Gaditane coast in early August in order to recommence their lives. We soon learn that both have lived a very different past in Madrid. Without wanting it, “seized to live side by side as the only survivors of a shipwreck”, they will interchange confidences and companionship thanks to the unexpected complicity that is involved in sharing an assistant and babysitter, Maribel. Sara, daughter of needy parents, had an «unusual borrowed childhood» with her godmother in the an upper-class neighbourhood of Madrid, and suffers the stigma of a person who’s had it all only to have it later taken away. Juan Olmedo, on the other hand, runs away from other injustices: a family tragedy and a secret and torturous love, that have almost succeeded in ruining his life. Just as the difficult airs that blow calmly or stormily over the Atlantic Coast, their existences seem to sway to the dictation of an inhospitable destiny, but they affirm their iron will in turning them to their favour.

Almudena Grandes was born in Madrid in 1960. She became widely recognized as a writer in 1989 with her novel Las edades de Lulú, which won the XI Sonrisa Vertical Prize. She has been accompanied by the acclaim of readers and critics ever since. She’s the author of ten novels and two books of short stories that have confirmed her as one of the most solid and internationally-known narrators in recent Spanish literature. Many of her works have been taken to the big screen, and her novel, El corazón helado, one of the most acclaimed and long-lasting successes in current Spanish literature, has received, among other awards, the Fundación Lara Prize, the prizes of the booksellers in Madrid and Seville, the Rapallo Carige in Italy and the Prix Méditerranée in France. Her previous novel Inés y la alegría was awarded the Critic’s Prize in Madrid 2011 and the Elena Poniatowska Prize 2011 and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize 2011, both in Mexico.