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Núria Añó was born in Catalonia, Spain, in 1973. She is a writer, a translator and a regular speaker at conferences and symposia, where she gives papers on literary creation, films, cities or authors like Elfriede Jelinek, Patricia Highsmith, Salka Viertel, Alexandre Dumas, Greta Garbo, Franz Werfel or Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) at University of Lleida (UdL), Tunis University, University of Jaén (UJA), International University of Andalucía (UNIA), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC-Madrid), Sysmän Kirjasto Library in Finland, Shanghai Writers' Association (SWA), Fudan University in China, East China Normal University, Sinan Mansion or Instituto Cervantes in Shanghai, also in libraries, secondary schools or in higher education.
She published her first story in 1990. Some of her short stories have been published in books such as
Dones i literatura a Lleida (City Council of Lleida, 1997);
VIII Concurs de Narrativa Literària Mercè Rodoreda (1997);
Estrenes (University of Lleida, 2005);
Escata de drac, no. 8 (City Council of Lleida, 2012);
Des lettres et des femmes... La femme face aux défis de l'histoire (Peter Lang, 2013);
Fábula, no. 35 (University of La Rioja, 2013);
Issue 3. Grief, When Women Waken (2014);
Resonancias, no. 127 (2014);
Les romancières sentimentales: nouvelles approches, nouvelles perspectives, L'ull crític 17-18 (University of Lleida, 2014);
Letralia, Year XXI (2016); Cien años del Genocidio Armenio: Un siglo de silencio (Editarx, 2016);
Revista Narrativas, no. 43 (2016);
L'art de l'adaptation: féminité et roman populaire (University of Lleida, 2016);
April Issue, Nebula (2017);
Cine y Literatura (Editorial Letralia, 2017);
The Mother Tongue in a Foreign Land (Shanghai Writers' Association, 2017) and in Domuzime, no. 4 (2017).
Her first novel published, Els nens de l'Elisa ([Elisa's Children] Omicron, 2006), was third among the finalists for the 24th Ramon Llull Prize for Catalan Literature. L'escriptora morta ([The Dead Writer] Omicron) was published in 2008; Núvols baixos ([Low Clouds] Omicron), in 2009.
La mirada del fill ([The Son's Gaze] Abadia, 2012) is her most recent novel published. She is currently finishing a biography of screenwriter Salka Viertel, a Jewish salonnière and well-known in Hollywood in the thirties as a specialist on Greta Garbo scripts, such as "Queen Christina", "The Painted Veil", "Anna Karenina", "Conquest" or "Two-Faced Woman". She was awarded the 18th City of Almenara Joan Fuster Prize for Fiction.
Her short story 2066. Comença l'etapa de correcció [2066. Beginning the age of correction, 2006] was published on the European magazine Cafébabel and translated into Spanish, French, English, Italian, German, Polish and Latvian. Presage is also translated into English and published in 2014 in the American literary journal When Women Waken. The essay "The mother Tongue in foreign Lands" was published into English and Chinese in Wenhui Daily, a major large-scale general newspaper of China.
Her writing focus on the characters' psychology, generally antiheroes. The characters are the most important in her books, much more than the topic, due to "an introspection, a reflection, not sentimental, but feminine". Her novels cover a multitude of topics, treat actual and socially relevant problems such as injustices or poor communication between people and frequently, the core of her stories remains unexplained. Añó asks the reader to discover the "deeper meaning" and to become involved in the events presented.
Literary Prizes/ Awards:
2018. Awarded at Krakow UNESCO City of Literature in Poland.
2017. Awarded at International Writer's and Translators' Center of Rhodes in Greece.
2017. Awarded at Baltic Centre for Writers and Translators in Sweden.
2016. Awarded at Shanghai Writing Program.
2016. Prize for Literature to be a resident at Villa Sarkia in Finland.
2004. Third among the finalists for the 24th Ramon Llull Prize for Catalan Literature.
1997. Finalist for the 8th Mercè Rodoreda Prize for Catalan Short Stories of Molins de Rei.
1996. 18th City of Almenara Joan Fuster for Fiction.
Quotes of the author:
"Writing means to me a need to feel alive. To speak loudly and plainly. Everything I want to say about a topic, I say it bluntly. If I had to write with restraint, it would make no sense to me. This job has to do with courage. I use my writing as a tool to inform and condemn those things that I don’t like, such as injustices or poor communication between people. Then I make a kind of parody. I love to create characters, but what I like most is to put them in a tense situation, because I get a layer of human behavior that is being uncovered. I prefer the weak characters and to be on the side of the losers, misunderstood or lonely people than to write about the strong and powerful who succeed. Most of my characters are female. Female readers appreciate what other women write about women issues. Because we are able to identify with a character, with a sentence, even with a silence. Because we are all women and at least once have suffered discrimination for this reason. It makes us more open-minded and reasonable."
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