Bio

Sebastián Portell is a Mallorcan writer, author of the novels Ariel i els cossos (2019) and El dia que va morir David Bowie (2016, Time Out Creator of the Year Award), as well as the plays Transbord (2018) and Un torrent que era la mar (2013, City of Badalona Theatre Award), among others. He has also taken care of volumes such as the biographical interview Antònia Vicens. Massa deutes amb les flors (2016), Davant el fulgor. Per a llegir l’obra d’Antònia Vicens (2018, together with Sebastià Perelló), and Amors sense casa. Poesia LGBTQ catalana (2018), the first anthology of its kind in the history of Catalan literature. Since 2017 he has coordinated the LGBTI section of Time Out Barcelona and regularly collaborates in media such as Ser Catalunya or the Ara Balears newspaper. He is secretary of the Association of Writers in the Catalan Language.

Project

During my stay I will work on the process of writing my new novel, a reflection on artistic ambition and success and social recognition, based on the notion of failure proposed in Jack Halberstam’s The Queer Art of Failure. The work will travel between the frontiers of narrative fiction and essay, and will cover the biography of one of the most visionary and forgotten Catalan artists of the early 20th century, an exponent of creative freedom and almost suicidal transgression.