Cabaret Biarritz
Biarritz, 1925: After a storm, the dead body of a young woman is found. Her leg got caught in a metal ring in the harbour. Five years later, George Miet, an obscure author who writes novels for the French publishing house La Fortune, is engaged by his publisher to write about this dramatic occurrence that horrified the whole town. Miet travels to Biarritz and interviews a lot of people related to this case: from members of the high society to those of the service, the judge who took over this case or the gravedigger.
The portraits of these bizarre, surprising and eccentric characters form this fantastic novel set in Biarritz, known for its unprecedented economic prosperity, the evolution of jazz music, flapper culture, the raise of drugs consuming and other criminal activity. The interviews reflect the society of the 1920s, when summer holidays in Biarritz formed part of the luxurious lifestyle of the upper classes, the most selected circle of the international community.
“It is a novel that takes place during the holiday season and in which the glamorous parties of the 1920s, pornography and cocaine mix,” explained the author. “The characters are brave and appreciate the freedom and passion.”
Spain: Destino (Planeta), spring 2015 awarded with the Premio Nadal 2015
El Pensionado de Neuwelke
El Pensionado de Neuwelke tells the story of a young French boarding school teacher named Émilie Sagée, from Dijon, who is plagued by a terrible affliction and exiled. After travelling around half of Europe, while fleeing from a fanatic priest, who is convinced that Émilie is the incarnation of Lucifer, the teacher arrives at the Neuwelke Pension for Girls near Wolmar, in the freezing and isolated lands of Livonia. There Émilie finds a real home: the owner of the school, the teachers, the ladies, the students, the help, along with a grumpy old Scottish groundskeeper, form a human setting in which friendship, bonding, piety, and honor combine to fight against envy, jealousy, ambition, and fanaticism. When Émilie begins to suffer her terrifying episodes, the world of the boarding school starts to fall apart, obliging all of its inhabitants to show, for better or worse, their true characters. Some try to hide or explain what is happening to Miss Sagée, others try to take advantage of the unrest, that their coexistence with specters and ghosts implicates.
Doppelgängers in a pure Dickens style; a passionate homage to Romantic literature.
Spain: Planeta 2013
