Take Six

Take Six is a celebration of six remarkable Catalan women writers: Victor Catala, Rosa Maria Arquimbau, Merce Rodoreda, Carme Riera, Imma Monso and Teresa Solana. The stories span almost hundred and twenty years, starting with Victor Catala (the nom de plume of Caterina Albert) whose stories set in Barcelona, the Catalan countryside and fishing villages over half a century create a fictional universe in which hundreds of characters contest the unhappy destinies history has dealt them. Arquimbau and Rodoreda, active feminists and champions of Catalan, capture the heady atmosphere in Barcelona prior to the fascist insurrection on 1936 and the horror of war and exile in Nazi occupied France. The three living writers focus on the ironies of the transition from dictatorship to democracy with wit and compassion as women in their society struggle against a legacy of machismo and entrenched patriarchal attitudes. Many Catalan women novelists have been translated into English over the last twenty years and this anthology is witness to a vigorous tradition of short story writing that can be light-hearted and frivolous, tragic and noir, in a variety of styles that will delight and captivate readers.