Asja. A one way love

BOOK REVIEW

ASJA. A ONE WAY LOVE

Author: Roser Amills From the reader report by: Sabine Giersberg

In her extremely well done novel, author Roser Amills from Mallorca (*1974) takes up a dictum by Ricardo Piglias and tells the story of Latvian actress, director and theatre maker Asja Lacis (18911979), who is almost unknown in Germany but played a crucial role for the life of philosopher Walter Benjamin, a role which is ignored or played down by Benjamin´s friends, colleagues and biographers. […]

Author Roser Amills moulded the well-researched, real events into a story which is marvellously fictitious. Certainly, her work as a journalist was helpful with this. Her characters are lively, they appear with all their fascinating features and contradictions, at moments of highest ecstasy or at low points of their lives. The wickerwork of personal relations is deciphered in a comprehensibly psychological way, and while doing so, almost in passing light is shed on the historical background – topics such as ideological blindness, totalitarianism, exclusion etc.

The style is fluent and captivating, on the whole the novel is well structured. An informative afterword and a chronology of the events are helpful for the reader´s orientation. […]

It is time to present this story, which may be supposed to be easily translated in German, to a wider audience in Germany.

Conclusion: a clear recommendation and an invitation to leave oneself to this enriching and inspiring reading.

PUBLISHED IN NEW SPANISH BOOKS DE

COMANEGRA

Title ASJA. A ONE WAY LOVE ASJA. AMOR DE DIRECCIÓN ÚNICA

Author Roser Amills Genre Literature Pages 304

ISBN 997-84-17188-02-3 Year of publication 2017 Number of editions 1 Language Spanish Spanish retail price 17.10 €

Author’s biography: Roser Amills (Algaida, 1974), Mallorcan writer, mother of two boys, lives and works in Barcelona. Very active on social media, she combines almost complete dedication to writing with journalistic work. She currently works in TV3, writes columns in Metrópoli Abierta and coordinates a blog for La Vanguardia. She has been distinguished with the APEIPRTVI 2014 Silver Microphone of Correspondents, the Llança de Sant Jordi de Òmnium Cultural (2011 and 2012), and the poetry awards from the Polytechnic University of Madrid and for fiction from the University of Barcelona, both the same year (1997). Some of her books have been translated into French, Russian, and Portuguese. This is her fourth novel. www.roseramills.com

Synopsis: Berlin, 1955. Latvian theater director Asja Lacis, crushed by the experience of ten years in a labour camp in Kazakhstan, returns home and visits her old friend Bertolt Brecht. After a brief conversation in which they both try to conceal their misery, Bertolt tells Asja that Walter Benjamin, the love of her life has died. Turbulent emotions pull Asja back to bittersweet memories of her relationship with one of the most influential European philosophers of the 20th century. This novel reinstates the figure of Asja Lacis, a woman unknown to the general public, whose potential has been denied and whose talent reduced to a mere anecdote, a footnote in the life of a wise man. Asja shows us how a personality can resist the greatest atrocities, yet succumb to a sentimental dead end.

Publisher: Comanegra Comanegra is an independent publishing house founded in 2007 in Barcelona. A small company which feels very happy in its niche, since it can ignore the trends of mass market publishing and concentrate on the development and careful publishing of the titles which it finds attractive.

Publishing rights available from: Comanegra - CIF B64358047 Barcelona www.comanegra.com Contact: Alba Cayón [alba@comanegra.com] Phone: (+34) 932 680 177

Prizes and reviews: “Asja, quite apart from reinstating a woman worthy of being remembered, explains the history of Europe from the turbulent perspective of those who played a leading role in the interwar intellectual environment” La Vanguardia

Comments: They tried to reduce her to a cabaret performer, a spy, a disreputable woman, a fanatical communist. But who really was Asja Lacis, the woman Walter Benjamin fell in love with?