This book is a touching homage to the building projects that surround
Barcelona and upon which the city has turned its back. Through an
autobiographical landscape that is interchangeable with all cities around the
world, the author discovers personal scenes as well as epic and moving stories.
He does this while he strolls with his mother along the outskirts of the city,
the edge of the river, the old power station and other emblematic places that
belong to an old and mistreated suburb. He is met with a geography that has
been sculpted by the battles of its citizens and with an urban space that has
been won over by the effort of the first immigrants.
A personal memoir and an urgent chronicle with its beautiful alloy of
humor and poetry., this book also seeks to settle the score and to search for
an identity that, in the end, the author will discover in the voice of his
mother. Paseos con mi madre
talks about the social conquests and defeats that are now discussed again as
the state of social well-being is being questioned.
Javier Pérez Andújar (Sant Adrià de Besòs, Barcelona, 1965) studied
Spanish Philology in the University of Barcelona and is the author of Catalanes todos (All Catalans), Las 15 visitas
de Franco a Cataluña (Franco’s 15
Visits to Catalonia), and Salvador
Dalí. A la conquista de lo Irracional (Salvador Dalí. The
Conquest of the Irrational). He has
published, as the editor and anthologist, a book of short horror stories Vosotros los que leéis aún estáis entre los
vivos (You Who Read Are Still Among
the Living), and has translated into Spanish the comic book Astérix El cielo se nos cae encima (Asterix, the Sky Is Falling Down Upon Us).
He was editor-in-chief of the literary magazine Taifa for some time, founder of the fanzine Flandis Mandis, and a columnist in Mondo Brutto. As a journalist, he has collaborated with Ajoblanco, Rock de Lux and Primera Línea,
among other publications, as well as with the radio stations Ona Catalana and
Radio Nacional de España (Ràdio 4), and on the literary TV program Saló de Lectura. He is currently a
collaborator of El País and of L’Hora del Lector, a literary program on
Catalan television.