Mi primer libro en español.

Oh I’m so proud of this, but don’t let me digress.

The book can be described in one word: hillarious!

It’s non-stop laugh-out-loud reading. And if you know the streets and places he uses then you just can’t keep it bottled in.

It’s about an alien who lands with it’s partner (Gurb) in Barcelona, sometime before the 1992 Olympics.

It’s partner promptly dissapears and it’s left stranded in a city under construcion. There begins the search for Gurb and the unavoidable acquaintance with all things human and barcelonese.

It’s a wonderful satirical view on our urban lifestyle, great public works and Barcelona.

My favorite passage is about the efforts of the municipality of Barcelona to remind it’s citizens every night of the movements of the tectonic plates:

“Para recordar este fenómeno, el Ayuntamiento envía todas las noches unos aparatos, denominados camiones de recogida de basuras, que reproducen bajo las ventanas de los cuidadanos aquel fragor telúrico”

If you ever slept with your window open in a southern european city (excluding Venice) then you know exactly what he means.

You can learn more about Eduardo Mendoza here.

Amazon US only lists the spanish version and a french translation (Sans nouvelles de Gurb). Amazon Germany also has the german translation: Nichts neues von Gurb