Barcelona, Part 1
Everything Is True
Ada Hoffmann's author newsletter
Hello, readers - I had the most amazing experience in Barcelona; it was truly a once in a lifetime journey. It took a little while to recover from all the excitement and get my thoughts in order - a lot longer than I thought it would, actually; thanks for your patience! But I met an amount of fandom that I didn't even think I had, and now I need to tell you all about it! In fact I have so much to say that this is going to get split into a few posts.
First, though, here's a little bit of news:
I'm excited to announce the upcoming virtual launch of RESURRECTIONS, which will take place at 12pm EST, December 8, on YouTube. Check out this cool banner and feel free to share:
I didn't have time to promote it properly before I left, but Dawn Vogel was kind enough to interview me about RESURRECTIONS at History That Never Was.
A little birdy tells me that the Playstation edition of TRINITY FUSION is now up for pre-order!
For folks hoping for an e-ARC of RESURRECTIONS, it’s available now on NetGalley - in fact, it looks like it was the #2 most requested book in that week’s SFWA NetGalley program!
Five e-copies of RESURRECTIONS are also being given away to subscribers of the SFWA New Releases Newsletter - you can sign up to the newsletter (anytime before Dec 25) for your chance to win, as well as the chance to hear about all sorts of other new speculative fiction coming out.
RESURRECTIONS now has a blurb from Nebula winner Kelly Robson: "A stellar collection. Ada Hoffmann's stories are vivid and transporting."
And from Juliet Kemp: "I loved this varied collection of thoughtful and often hopeful stories and poems, many of which challenge accustomed views of the world or twist tropes in satisfying ways. Hoffman writes vividly imagined worlds peopled with characters - frequently queer and/or neurodiverse - with fascinating experiences of the world. Well worth diving into."
And now, Barcelona, here we go!
Wednesday, November 8
The less said about transatlantic flights the better, but I'm in Barcelona bright and early at 9:30am after not very much sleep, and it's here that I meet my hosts for the first time - Gonzalo and Toni, the co-editors of Editorial Chronos. We chat in the taxi as we get everything sorted with my itinerary and hotel. Both of them run the press together as a hobby, in between day jobs and classes at the university. In North America a press this size simply would not be able to host authors traveling internationally; in Barcelona, partly due to help from the city around Festival 42, it is apparently possible. I kind of want to flop over, but check-in time at the hotel isn't until 3pm, so instead we drop off my luggage and then the two of them take me for coffee and breakfast; I get a little omelette and some crusty bread spread with crushed tomatoes, which is apparently common breakfast food here. They also give me a present: the Lonely Planet Guide to Barcelona.
We're in a district called Barceloneta, which used to be a fisherman's area before it gentrified. It has a very distinctive look, with narrow pedestrian alleyways between old, old buildings of Gothic stone. There's a vague smell of cigarette smoke everywhere, and the occasional bicycle courier that comes zooming through with an improbably large cargo.
A big public square or a beautiful church will sometimes abruptly appear out of the maze.
As we wander, I quickly realize how valuable it is to have local guides with an intimate knowledge of the area. They're quick to point out the sights that will interest a tourist but equally quick to explain the perils of over-tourism. Rents have gone up in Barcelona, in part because of AirBNBs grabbing up apartments for tourists. Shopping streets like Las Ramblas, once seedy and a bit unsafe, are now so keenly focused on appealing to tourists, and so overpriced, that the locals don't bother with them.
There's a complex and difficult history here that I only vaguely understand, and my hosts don't mention it except when I ask. Catalonia, the area of Spain that includes Barcelona, speaks a different language than the rest of Spain, and there is a strong separatist movement. That's why I'm here - because the Outside series was translated, not into Spanish (which is also called "Castilian" here,) but into Catalan. I see a lot of Catalan flags, with a single star and a series of red and yellow stripes, hanging over balconies.
ln one square I also find this frankly bizarre looking mascot - one whose purpose is to try to convince Catalonians to speak more Catalan.
"We're the Quebeckers of Spain," says Gonzalo, which is a comparison I immediately understand.
Then after a few more twists and turns, we abruptly come out at the sea.
Back when we were emailing and sorting out the logistics for this trip, Gonzalo asked me what I most wanted to see, and I answered - the Mediterranean Sea! And there it is. The gothic warrens give way here, fairly suddenly, a boardwalk lined with little bars and beach attractions. There are art installations set up in the sand; there are open-air pools right next to the beach, and big hotels, and sailboats - not to mention big cargo ships, further off in the distance.
Gonzalo and Toni buy me a coffee and a sparkling water, and we sit in one of the beachside cafés. I tell them I've been trying to learn some Catalan using an app. (Duolingo doesn't have English-to-Catalan, so I've been using one called Mondly, which is made by the textbook company Pearson.) The result of this is that I don't really speak Catalan at all, but I've picked up a few phrases and random words which I am eager to inflict on everyone at every opportunity.
I can say, "Jo necessito café," for instance. Or, gesturing to the sparkling water, "un got d'aigua." Gonzalo and Toni tell me the phrase for a glass of sparkling water: "un got d'aigua amb gas."
When we're done, we go a bit closer to the water, and despite the coffee, I do something that I didn't know it was possible for me to do: I fall half asleep, while sitting straight up in broad daylight. (I really did not get any sleep on that plane.) It's beautiful and warm here and even though there are all sorts of things going on, the salty sea breeze lulls me into peace. So I just kind of pass out for a while.
By Canadian standards, this feels like a mild summer day or a nice sunny one in early fall. By Barcelona standards, it's winter, and too cold to swim. The lifeguard stations are closed up and no one's really in the water, but people hang out on the sand sunning themselves. There are hawkers around who look South Asian or Middle Eastern and who have beautiful patterned beach blankets for sale.
When I've recovered from my Mediterranean swoon, we walk along the beach for a while. To Gonzalo and Toni, this beach is a little too touristy, and too busy, especially in the summer; if I have time and energy, they recommend, I should take the train to Sitges, where there are quieter and more natural beaches that I can walk along for ages. But they both grudgingly admit that being by the water lifts their mood, and that they should come here more often.
Later, on our way back into the city, we come across a strange and striking monument - a single red curve sprouting high up from the cobblestoned ground. I'm startled and sobered to read the writing on it.
I knew there were tensions between speakers of Catalan & speakers of Castilian Spanish, but I sort of hadn’t realized there was… a whole siege?
"This is our je me souviens," Gonzalo says.
We eat lunch at a little bar that serves pintxos. I've never heard of pintxos before, but when I said I was excited to eat tapas, Gonzalo and Toni steered me over here. Pintxos are a Basque style of meal, which are similar to tapas in that they consist of all sorts of little morsels that you can pick and assemble on your plate, but all of the morsels are arranged on slices of bread. This is excellent to me - the bread they have here is crusty and delicious and the toppings for the bread are delicious too. It takes me until halfway through the meal before I realize that half the signs in the bar are in Basque. I don't speak a single word of Basque, which is famously not even a little bit related to romance languages, but I love the look of it, with all those z's and x's.
By the time I get back to my hotel for 3pm, I am totally exhausted, and very happy to flop down and entertain myself quietly for the rest of the day. But there's one more surprise, which is that the city of Barcelona, in honor of the festival, has provided "meal tickets"! I can present them at the hotel restaurant and get an entire three-course meal, complete with coffee, wine, and delicious little dinner rolls with olive oil.
(They put olive oil instead of butter on their bread here.)
What alternate universe have I stepped into where authors are treated with such luxury? (Don't answer that. The answer is "Europe.") I'm a little bit weirded out and a lot flattered.
Thursday
I wake up in time for the breakfast buffet. I’m a little disoriented by the whole thing. I take my time parsing it all out and trying things that look appetizing. Among other things, they have yogurt with a totally different set of things you can mix into it (dried papayas and stuff,), and they have really nice little cold-cut slices of sausage.
By accident, I end up having breakfast together with Tim Pratt and a woman from Dubai, both of whom are also here for the festival! The woman from Dubai is so excited to meet other “women in science fiction” that I don’t have the heart to remind her of my actual pronouns. She tells us all about Dubai, where the city itself is extremely science fictional but there is almost no fandom - just her, a guy from Jordan, and sometimes Usman Malik.
After breakfast it's time for a leisurely but businessy start to the day: I'm getting interviewed by a reporter around noon, in a bookstore called Gigamesh, which is only about a block from the hotel.
Gigamesh has a big stock of SFF books in three languages - Spanish, English, and Catalan. Toni tells me they have a hashtag that translates as "#IHateGigamesh," because people will come in to the store just wanting to browse or attend an event, and will walk out carrying a ton of books that they did not intend to buy.
In the conference room at Gigamesh, I drink another coffee and cheerfully sign a big stack of books - all the copies of THE INFINITE (and a few of THE FALLEN) that people have pre-ordered.
Shortly after this, the reporter from El Nacional arrives. He's a shortish, bustling, buoyant man who explains to me that he's one of the Catalan newspaper's senior editors for politics, but that he still insists on doing the science fiction beat himself. He puts down a recording device and sits down with me in the conference room. We dish about generative AI for a while, since my bio says I did my PhD in computer creativity, and then he asks about the Outside books. They're the usual questions - about where I got the ideas, about neurodiverse and queer representation, et cetera. It's all easy, although I think I get excited and talk a little too fast. His English seems good to me, but he mentions that, back at the newspaper office, he'll have translators helping go over the recording and transcribe it correctly.
Finally he says, "Just one more thing - the word that is translated as Inquisitor in Catalan, is that also Inquisitor in English? Because - you know - here, we had the Spanish Inquisition!"
I am briefly horrified that I may have done something hugely culturally insensitive. "Oh no," I say, putting my hands over my face. "I didn't even think about how that would come across."
The reporter assures me that it's okay. It was long enough ago, he says, that for most people in Spain, the first thing they think of is Monty Python.
"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!" he says cheerfully, with a wave of his arms.
After the interview is over, there's supposed to be a photographer, but he's very late; apparently Toni gave him the wrong address due to an autocomplete mistake. This amuses me greatly because it's just like what I was telling the reporter about ChatGPT: it doesn't actually know any facts, but only knows the most likely continuation of a set of words, and this is why it "hallucinates." To fill the time, Toni takes me on a little tour of the neighborhood. Apparently this specific block in Barcelona is called the "Freaky Triangle," because it's got such a cluster of science fiction bookstores, game stores, and comic shops.
I am mildly shocked by the use of "freaky," an English loan word which is used in Catalan to mean "nerdy" or "geeky." I can't figure out if it's become a less insulting word in translation, or if there is actually more stigma against geeks here. I'm guessing it's the former, because the bookstores and comic shops all look very nice and classy.
We linger a while in an upscale-looking store full of pop culture memorabilia and figurines. Toni waves his hand vaguely at the big wall of Funko Pops, saying Spanish nerds are obsessed with Funko Pops for some reason he doesn’t understand. (I assure him there are just as many big walls of Funko Pops in Canada.) There's a dramatic, flame-y Darth Vader sculpture in a glass case that I would honestly be tempted by, if it didn't cost over eight hundred Euros, and if I had any idea how to ship such a thing back to Canada.
Finally the photographer arrives, so I spend a while posing in front of the bookstore, and inside the bookstore, with my books. This is pleasant enough. My official author photo is woefully out of date (it still has short hair??) so I'm secretly hopeful that one of these pictures will turn into something I can use (with permission) as a replacement.
"Can you write?" the photographer asks at last. His English isn't as good as the reporters, but he's been making himself understood. I go digging around for a pen for half a minute before he corrects himself, flustered - "No, I meant read!" So I pose for a while with THE INFINITE like I'm reading it.
After this, we go out for Chinese food - Gonzalo and Toni seem mildly surprised that we also have Chinese food in Canada - and then I have a while to rest at the hotel before Gonzalo takes me to Festival 42. The talk I'm doing tonight is called “The Universe of Ada Hoffmann: Diversity, Computation and Cosmic Horror,” and secretly I'm very intimidated; aside from book launches and the like, I've never done a whole talk that was just about me. I wonder if anyone will even show up.
Gonzalo has bought me a little paper transit pass which can take me on any of the buses or subways. This, he says proudly, is the transit pass locals use. The Barcelona subway is very modern, very well-run, and also very crammed with people at every hour of the day. I'm internally wincing a little as we climb up out of our destination stop and head the few blocks to the festival building. At first I am confused by the building. It's a sort of converted industrial building and it looks nothing like any convention center I have been in before.
I get introduced to some important people from the festival, who are effusive and welcoming, but not a lot about them really registers. I get herded into a big, dark room, and that's where things really get confusing, because all of a sudden a whole bunch of people are, like, fitting me with microphones, and giving me an earpiece for simultaneous translation, and I'm like, oh, shit, this is actually a big deal.
They send me up on an actual stage with fancy armchairs and backdrop and everything, with an actual small crowd of people in the darkened audience listening. A lady with bright red hair interviews me in Catalan, while down in a booth, an interpreter repeats everything into my earpiece in English. There's also a press photographer taking pictures; occasionally a stagehand tells me what direction to look, or what to do with my hands.
The questions are not too challenging - they're half about AI, and half about the Outside series and neurodivergent representation. (Also about "women in science fiction" again, which, ugh, but it seems so important to everyone there and I don't want to be like "sorry, I only partly identify as a woman, good luck with your feminist movement though.") It's becoming clear to me that no one in Barcelona has ever heard of having an autistic woman protagonist in science fiction before, and now that they've heard of it, they are eager to hear more. As Gonzalo explained to me earlier, there is a long tradition of fantasy writing in Catalan, but they only started translating classic sci-fi into this language about 4 or 5 years ago, so everything is still new.
In my science fiction WIP there's a character who's autistic and a writer, and at one point she ends up sitting with a group of highly disreputable people, in a very unfamiliar place, super flustered and unsure of herself. But when the other people, as fans, ask her about her characters, she's suddenly able to carry on a long and enthusiastic conversation regardless. Her characters are her special interest, and she can talk about them anywhere!
That's what this is like. I'm honestly pretty weirded out by the whole thing, but I'm also flattered that it's happening, and I'm literally just talking about what interests me. It's easy. It's fun.
Nobody has questions at the end, but as soon as I've taken my microphone and earpiece off and put my mask back on, I get guided behind a counter in the main hall, where there are an absurd number of people wanting their books signed. I sign the books. The festival organizer also gives me a T-shirt.
I still cannot emphasize how surreal this is. At North American conventions I don't ever bother to schedule signings; I'm lucky if I get two or three people coming up to me to ask. Here it's, like, practically everyone who came to the talk, wow.
I go to bed with my head still spinning.
(To Be Continued)