Class, struggle and identity: A talk with award-winning author Elena Medel

The Write Salon is honored to welcome ELENA MEDEL for a special conversation about her debut novel, The Wonders. Las Maravillas as it’s known in Spanish was published in 2020 and won the prestigious Francisco Umbral prize, a first for a woman author in Spain. First established as a poet and essayist, Medel emerges with this novel as a significant voice for the real experiences of working-class women in Spain over three generations. The Write Salon’s own WILLOW MATA, an American writer based near Madrid, will interview Medel about her process of writing the book, the response she’s received in Spain and abroad, and much more.

Join us for an engaging evening of literature, snacks and wine at Madrid’s only fully English bookstore, Secret Kingdoms!

ELENA MEDEL (1985) is a Spanish novelist, essayist and poet. She was the first woman ever to win the prestigious Francisco Umbral Prize for her debut novel, The Wonders (2020), which was also longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award 2023 and has been translated into more than fifteen languages. She is the recipient of the XXVI Loewe Prize for Young Poets and the Leonardo 2021 grant from the BBVA Foundation, and writer-in-residence at Cheuse Center and MALBA. She currently lives in Madrid.

WILLOW MATA is an American writer, teacher, and researcher. An avid reader and writer since childhood, she previously wrote her own story ideas mostly in the margins of books and the Notes app of her phone. Now based in Spain, she is working on a series of essays about growing up inside California’s counterculture movement in the 1980s.

Tickets: 6€

Secret Kingdoms is the new English Language bookshop in Madrid. Located in an old factory in Barrio de las Letras, it specializes in Spanish History and Literature in English whilst still offering a broad range of books across all genres.

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