Killing the Nerve

Catalan Book of the Year

Not so much autofiction as autojournalism, rising star, Anna Pazos ’book is an exploration of the end of youth and the beginning of adulthood for the global nomad generation. Anna takes us with her on her journey, fleeing the ‘Mediterranean mediocrity ’of bourgeois Barcelona life, through her unstructured Erasmus days in Thessaloniki, her first steps in journalism in Jerusalem, her sail across the Atlantic with an unsuitable lover and to post- MeToo, pre-pandemic New York.

When in 2021 she is forced back to Barcelona, an intimate exploration of her family, within the context of Catalan society, especially the independentist movement, makes her evaluate where she is in her life, and where she should be.