Individual residencies / Andorra
CARME MARTÍ CANTÍ
From Thursday, 7 October 2021 to Tuesday, 12 October 2021
Bio
Carme Martí (Montblanc, 1972) is a writer and teacher. With a degree in Catalan Philology from the UAB, she has worked as a teacher of Catalan for immigrants at the Consortium for Linguistic Normalization, has been an article writer for the local press and a cultural manager in the museum sector.
She is the author of Història d’una cuinera (Fonoll, 2008), co-author of Cròniques rurals (Barcino, 2011), author of Un cel de plom. La vida de Neus Català (Amsterdam, 2012), which has sixteen editions in different formats, more than 20,000 copies sold, a theatrical adaptation and a film adaptation in preparation, and of El camí de les Aigües (Amsterdam, 2,017).
Project
During my residency I will work on the new novel. It is a contemporary fiction novel set in the context of a serious illness and what it entails on a personal and family level, both medically and emotionally. It is a life journey that addresses other issues, such as work difficulties in the context of a child's illness and the search for identity.
Finding a haven
It was January 2020 when I was given an individual residency at Faberllull Andorra. I started the year with the excitement of having my novel well advanced and a door that I could go through to shut myself away for ten days of working on nothing else. I decided to accumulate even more documentation, and I stepped up my visits to Vall d’Hebron Hospital. I was interviewing specialists and families and visiting the neonatal and paediatric ICUs in scrubs with a notebook – and also with a heavy heart. I left with an even heavier heart. The residency dates for April were confirmed on 2 March. On 13 March, COVID-19 stopped the world, leaving the families doubly confined to the ICUs. The residency was postponed. The novel fell by the wayside. Emotion swept away the descriptions of the ICUs and all the more technical aspects. We went back to the world. I saw the joy of patients being discharged from afar. I started over.
It was September 2021 when we were able to fit the residency into my life again. It would be for fewer days, but I had finished the new draft, I had the proofs from the publishers, renewed enthusiasm, and a door that I could shut myself away behind. In October I drove the 160 km from Montblanc to La Massana, relishing the beauty of scenery I had seldom travelled through and shedding my everyday worries as I went. Meritxell Blanco’s warm welcome, the comfort of the residence, the gift of time, as if you could unwrap it bit by bit…
That in a world ruled by capitalism and political grandstanding, always in a hurry, there is a network of residencies for the arts, sciences and humanities to welcome us and offer us quality space and time and feed us is like finding shelter in the midst of a storm where you can catch your breath, dry your wings, and once more take flight trying to give of your very best. That the community opened its doors to me by organising a talk on Neus Català to sixty Baccalaureate students meant being able to share the haven of memory of the struggle against fascism in the turbulent times in which we live. In short, a true privilege! Faberllull, many thanks!