Sara Mesa – författare

Sonia meets Knut in an online literary forum and begins a unique long-distance relationship with him that becomes obsessive and derailed by excess. While her feelings toward him shift between attraction and repulsion, she can’t help but be fascinated by his unusual and perfectionist personality. He’s an intelligent young man of her same age who lives outside of all social norm and courts her through sumptuous stolen gifts, which include any book she could ever dream of. Her need to create distance when Knut becomes too absorbing, but also her unending curiosity, and a yearning to live experiences beyond a predictable existence, lead Sonia to begin a secret double life in which she will be trapped for several years without a chance to wipe the slate clean.In this unprecedented story, Sara Mesa’s concise and electrifying style not only exposes the dynamics of a disquieting, imbalanced romantic relationship, it gives shape to an elegant, non-prescriptive reflection on consumer society and theft; power and submission; desire, guilt, and sexuality; fantasy as an alternative to intimacy; the vulnerability of childhood; and the formation of a budding writer. With Scar, Sara Mesa consolidates herself as one of the most original literary voices of her generation. Published in 2015 in Spain and Latin America, Scar has been highly praised by literary critics and will be translated into Italian and Dutch. It won the 2015 Ojo Critico award, from Spain’s National Public Radio, for Spanish fiction authors under forty.

A claustrophobic story of desire and small town unease in the vein of Dogville or Coetzee’s Disgrace.On the heels of a cryptic mistake, Nat arrives in the rural village of La Escapa. She rents a small house from a negligent landlord, adopts a dog and begins to work on her first literary translation. But nothing in La Escapa is easy: her dog is ill-tempered and skittish, and mutual misunderstandings with her neighbours simmer below the surface. When conflict arises over repairs to her house, Nat receives an unusual offer – one that tests her sense of self and reveals her most unexpected desires. As Nat tries to understand her decision, the community of La Escapa comes together in search of a scapegoat.Now a feature film, directed by Isabel Coixet. Selected as the ‘Best Book of 2020’ by El País, La Vanguardia, El Cultural and El Correo. Shortlisted by El Mundo, Forbes, Elle, W Magazine and La Nueva España.

At Wybrany College, there are two kinds of student: the children of the rich and powerful, and the ‘Specials’ – recipients of a mysterious scholarship. Sealed off from the decaying world outside, the school promises safety, order and, for the Specials, the chance of a different life. But when one of them disappears, the illusion begins to crack. Hidden hierarchies shift. The line between protector and predator blurs.

‘There are no secrets in this family!’ proclaims Damián, the father. A secular idealist obsessed with morality and order, he is blind to the cracks in his home’s foundations, the oppression that pervades it, and the elaborate fictions his wife and children devise to survive it. While he quotes Gandhi and expounds on the virtues of education, charity and thrift, the children retreat into humiliated compliance or seek freedom in the most dangerous of places.Told through a mosaic of interlinked family stories spanning decades, acclaimed Spanish author Sara Mesa turns her wry humour and steely gaze on the family as an institution: the ideologies that shape it, the silences that undermine it, and the authority you can never quite escape.

Sonia meets Knut in an online literary forum and begins a long-distance relationship with him that gradually turns to obsession. Though Sonia needs to create distance when Knut becomes too absorbing, she also yearns for a less predictable existence. Alternately attracted to and repulsed by Knut, Sonia begins a secret double life of theft and betrayal in which she will ultimately be trapped for years.