Author

Laia Fàbregas

Born in Barcelona in 1973, Laia Fàbregas has lived in The Netherlands and in Spain and studied in both countries – Visual Arts at the University of Barcelona and, later, Art and Culture Management in Rotterdam. She also followed the creative writing course at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. Having originally gone there to enrich her art, her first novel, Het meisje met de negen vingers (The Girl with the Nine Fingers), about two Catalan sisters growing up in the latter days of the Franco regime was published at this time. It was well received and has been translated into several other languages. One line from her debut illustrates the kind of author Fàbregas is: ‘You’re really conceptual, you.’ It’s an offhand declaration of love from one character to another, yet it characterises what Fàbregas is doing, creating literature that playfully speaks of art. Landen is her second novel.

Landing

Landing

(Ambo Anthos, 2010, 209 pages)

‘Biztresa’ means nothing, not in any language. It is just a collection of letters, but anyone who wants can find meaning in it. In Landen (Landing) by Laia Fàbregas, it is a metaphor for art, found hidden in a small chest that plays a central role. When the man to whom the chest belongs dies during a flight from Spain to The Netherlands, the woman who’d been placed in the seat beside him takes it with her.

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