The Time of Cherries

Spring, 1974. After twelve years abroad, Natàlia Miralpeix returns to Barcelona and her family. Change is in the air: revolution sexual, political and artistic is simmering. Franco may still be in power, but his death is only two years away. The younger generation write poetry, listen to Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, and talk of a freer future. The older generation, though, carry the hidden wounds of the Civil War, their divided loyalties, and their own thwarted dreams, rebellions and desires. Translated here for the first time into English, Montserrat Roig's The Time of Cherries is a beloved classic of Catalan literature, bold and startlingly fresh. As it dips in and out of timelines, stories and voices, it evokes a gritty and headily captivating Barcelona; a city and a people striving to leave the ghosts of the past behind, find a place in this invigorating new world and bring in the time of cherries, the springtime of joy.

Montserrat Roig i Fransitorra Catalan journalist and writer of novels and short stories, was born in 1946. In her writing, Roig confronted her own political, cultural and literary past in the search for her identity as a writer in a rapidly changing Catalonia. She won, among other awards, the 1976 Premi Sant Jordi de Novel·la for El temps de les cireres and the 1978 Crítica Serra d'Or prize for historic journalism for Els catalans als camps nazis. She died from cancer in 1991.