On the occasion of the publication of her book "Un día en la vida de Clarita". Centre Cultural La Nau
Discussion with Rosa Montero
On the occasion of the publication of her book "Un día en la vida de Clarita"
Presented by:
Cristina García Pascual. Head of Initiatives at the UV Creative Writing Hub
Free admission with registration: https://anar.uv.es/AGUi7Kc
Rosa Montero was born in Madrid and studied Journalism and Psychology. She published the novels Absent Love: A Chronicle (1979), The Delta Function (1981), Te trataré como a una reina (I Will Treat her like a Queen, 1983), Amado amo (Beloved Master, 1988), Temblor (Tremor, 1990), Beautiful and Dark (1993), La hija del Caníbal (The Cannibal’s Daughter, 1997, Primavera Novel Prize), El corazón del Tártaro (The Heart of the Tartar, 2001), La loca de la casa (The Crazed Woman Inside me, 2003 and 2023, Qué Leer, Grinzane Cavour and Roman Primeur Awards), Historia del Rey Transparente (The Story of the Translucent King, 2005 y 2025, Qué Leer and Mandarache awards), Instrucciones para salvar el mundo (Instructions to Save the World, 2008), Tears in the Rain (2011), La ridícula idea de no volver a verte (The Ridiculous Idea of Not Seeing You Again, 2013, Premio de la Crítica de Madrid), Weight of the Heart (2015), La carne (The Flesh, 2016), Los tiempos del odio (The Times of Hate, 2018), La Buena Suerte (Good Luck, 2020), The Danger to be Sane (2022), La Desconocida (Jane Doe, 2023) —with Olivier Truc—, Animales Difíciles (Difficult Animals, 2025, Celsius Awards) and A Day in Clarita’s Life (2026). She is also the author of the book of short stories Amantes y Enemigos (Lovers and Enemies, 1998) and the biographical essays Historias de mujeres (Stories of Women) —reissued in an expanded and illustrated edition called Nosotras. Historias de mujeres y algo más (Us: Stories of Women and More, 2018), —and Pasiones (Passions, 2000). She is the author of children’s stories, and journalistic compilations such as Cuentos Verdaderos (True Stories, 2024). Since 1976, she has been a writer in El País, a Spanish journal in which she was editor-in-chief of the Sunday supplement (1980-1981). She was awarded with the Premio Nacional de Periodismo (National Journalism Award, 1981), the National Prize for Spanish Literature (2017), the Leyenda awards by the Asociación de Librerías de Madrid and the Ciudad de Alcalá de las Artes y las Letras award (2019), the CEDRO award (2020), the Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts (2022), the Critical Eye Awards (2022), the Liber Awards (2025), the Giovanni Boccaccio Awards (Italy), and the journalistic award Francisco Cerecedo (2026). In 2024, she was named Officière des Arts et des Lettres (France). Her work has been translated into thirty languages and some of her novels were adapted to the audiovisual format.
BOOK SYNOPSIS
Clarita has spent thirty years working in a bank, clinging to an almost invisible precision, in a narrow world where every gesture is planned in advance. Lonely, meticulous, and used to taking up little space, she faces her last day before retirement as someone standing at an uncertain border: on the other side, she can’t imagine a new era, but rather a void hard to name.
However, that day, which should have passed amid apathetic farewells, constant humiliations, and the cruelties of a ruthless office, is disrupted when something unexpected happens. Forced to react, Clarita forgets the role that others have assigned to her and that she has accepted for so long. In a few hours, something that seemed to have been asleep awakens: intelligence, desire, rage, a glimpse of freedom.
With psychological intensity, a lot of humour, and a prodigious sense of curiosity, Rosa Montero offers us a moving story of reaffirmation and transformation. It could be the story of the Ugly Duckling, although it’s more like the one about an unusual frog that transforms into a tyrannosaurus.
