Presentation of the eponymous book by Andrea Valdés, JEKYLL & JILL publishers, as a result of an investigation produced by La Virreina Centre de la Imatge
Thursday 11 April 2019, 7 pm. Virreina LAB
Free entrance. Limited places

In Distraídos venceremos… (Distracted We Shall Overcome…), Andrea Valdés considers a series of authors who gave their autobiographical writings unheard-of forms and took them in unprecedented directions, reacting in words to everything that life foisted on them or denied them. Unsurprisingly, their responses were diverse in nature. The works analysed here range from an affidavit (Maura Lopes Cançado) to an inventory of scars (Severo Sarduy), a terminal poem (Héctor Viel Temperley), a prologue that comes to a halt (Mario Levrero) and quite a performance (María Moreno). There is also a tribute in the style of film noir (Carlos Correas) and the mapping of a space that is a body as well (Gloria Anzaldúa).

Some of these works were conceived in extreme conditions. Others challenge the classic notion of authorship or what History does or does not say, as a result of which writings that began in privacy develop into a literary game and culminate in a political project, giving rise to a remarkable essay. 

The title, an unabashed and knowing nod at a poet, already hints at this. The tone too since, in her reflections, the author perhaps points us to a wound on the forehead as well as a fright on the street, allowing herself to be entrapped by the throb of her readings “like someone whose tongue is caught by several letters”.

Andrea Valdés (Barcelona, 1979) is a graduate in Political Sciences (Pompeu Fabra University) and a bookseller, a practice she has combined with writing till very recently. She regularly works with artists and contributes to catalogues and exhibitions. She is the co-author of a play (Astronaut, Theatre O) and has had pieces published in various media outlets, among them the “Babelia” supplement of El País newspaper, the “Cultura/s” supplement of La Vanguardia newspaper and the magazines Les Inrockuptibles, Contexto (CTXT) and El Estado Mental. Distraídos venceremos… Usos y derivas en la escritura autobiogràfica is her first essay.