The Wonders

'Mesmerising. Medel's prose is hypnotic - it's hard to believe this is her first novel.' Avni Doshi, author of the Booker Prize-shortlisted Burnt Sugar 'A serene and impious novel that puts class, feminism and the eternal complexity of family ties at the fore' Mariana Enríquez, author of the International Booker Prize-shortlisted The Dangers of Smoking in Bed AN AUDACIOUS, HEARTBREAKING DEBUT ABOUT WORKING-CLASS WOMEN'S LIVES ACROSS TWO GENERATIONS, HERALDING A NEW EUROPEAN LITERARY STAR María and her granddaughter Alicia have never met. Decades apart, both make the same journey to Madrid in search of work and independence. María, scraping together a living as a cleaner and carer, sending money back home for the daughter she hardly knows; Alicia, raised in prosperity until her family was brought low by tragedy, now trapped in a poorly paid job and a cycle of banal infidelities. Their lives are marked by precarity, and by the haunting sense of how things might have been different. Through a series of arresting vignettes, Elena Medel weaves together a broken family's story, stretching from the last years of Franco's dictatorship to mass feminist protests in contemporary Madrid. Audacious, intimate and shot through with razor edged lyricism, The Wonders is a revelatory novel about the many ways that lives are shaped by class, history and feminism; about what has changed for working-class women, and what has remained stubbornly the same. WINNER OF THE FRANCISCO UMBRAL PRIZE 'Very rarely do natural talent, linguistic discipline, and emotional rawness coincide... unfolds a history of crude intimacies, subtle roughness and luminous sadness' Andrés Neuman, author of Traveller of the Century

About the Author :
Elena Medel was born in Córdoba in 1985 and lives in Madrid. She is the author of three poetry collections and two works of non-fiction. At 19 she founded the poetry publishing house La Bella Varsovia, one of the most prestigious in the Spanish-speaking world. She is the recipient of the XXVI Loewe Prize for Young Poets, the Princess of Girona Foundation Arts and Literature Award 2016 for the whole of her work and the Francisco Umbral Prize for the Best Book Of The Year 2020. The Wonders is her first novel, and will be translated into thirteen languages.

Review :
The Wonders is a poet's novel, delicate but strong, impressing its images firmly on the imagination. A mesmerizing read. Medel's prose is hypnotic, it's hard to believe this is her first novel. I was completely engrossed in this story, in the shadow each generation casts on the one that comes after it, in the tension between caring for oneself and caring for others Completely unsentimental and with a harshness that hides the most radiant and painful of scars... brings to life several generations of working women: it's a serene and impious novel that puts class, feminism, and the eternal complexity of family ties at the fore Full of brilliant moments of illumination... The effect of [the book's] fragmentation is to make of these individual women's lives a collective picture of working-class Spanish womanhood. With light touches Medel conveys gradual but tremendous change... it has a boldly ingenious structure and flashes of beauty A beautifully written novel that examines the lives of three generations of working-class women living precariously in Madrid The diminution of choices which poverty forces on people is superbly well explored An ambitious and enlightening book from an acclaimed Spanish poet At just over 200 pages, The Wonders is a novel that doesn't waste a single word, instead basking in all the linguistic pleasures of great poetry Very rarely do natural talents, linguistic discipline, and emotional rawness coincide. That is the case of Elena Medel, one of the great young poets of our language, whose first novel unfolds a history of crude intimacies, subtle roughness and luminous sadness, who works from class conscience with moral force, stylistic precision and narrative honesty Narration and style go hand in hand in a literary wonder that is absolutely personal yet reminds you of the audacity of Virginia Woolf... one of Spain's best poets has become one of its most important novelists Without falling into clichés, with a style that exudes lyricism, Medel narrates what recent Spanish history has meant for women... a narrative wonder Spanish poet Medel's remarkable English-language debut moves from Francoist Spain into the present day, tracing a family's fractured ties over three generations... Arresting characterizations and vivid prose fuel Medel's searing look at the impact gender, class, and financial hardships have on working-class Spanish women's lives as the country is buffeted by wider cultural shifts. It adds up to a powerful story Medel's poetic sensibility is evident in rhythmic, incantatory prose, yet she also looks at the world through a good novelist's magnifying glass . . . Medel makes room for her characters to grow into their power as women, a power they discover does not in fact lie in money Medel captures the plight of working women who are limited by class and gender dynamics . . . Small acts of protest add up to each woman's larger fight for freedom from the confines of men, money and everlasting grief . . . Though they have made mistakes and been lonely, they have survived. And that triumph they claim for themselves The Wonders is the long-awaited novel debut by one of the best poets of the new Spanish generation. The Wonders is a novel about money-a novel about how the money we don't have defines us. It is also a novel about care, responsibilities, and expectations; about the precariousness that does not respond to the crisis but to the class, and about who will tell the stories that define our origins and our past Prizewinning Spanish poet Medel's debut novel examines the lives of three generations of women in Madrid with an unsparing eye . . . The translation from Spanish of Medel's unvarnished look at three constrained lives is unsentimental and direct Medel's sensitive debut, charged with feminist insights but never losing sight of the particularities of its characters, weaves together the stories of two women whose deeper connection only becomes clear as the novel approaches its end . . . Spanish novelist Medel astutely examines the forces--political, economic, familial, and personal--that have shaped the two women's richly detailed lives. Though penned in by class and gender, often in ways they do not recognize, Maria and Alicia come across not as simple victims but as struggling survivors, still open to change I read The Wonders is one page-turning night. Yet to describe Elena Medel's debut as gripping is to miss the point. An unflinching story about class, sex, family, and working women everywhere, this book achieves a rare combination of novelistic plotting and virtuosic interiority that left me rooting for Maria and Alicia as if I'd known them all my life A stylistic triumph . . . Reminiscent of Elena Ferrante and Virginia Woolf, The Wonders is a stunning debut about the intersection between poverty and womanhood Dreamlike yet precise, internal yet expansive, The Wonders moves between generations of women with a clear-eyed empathy for their struggles to be free. Medel's characters are hungry, angry, imperfect, and completely alive A skillful, shattering first novel of great finesse, rare intelligence and profound maturity In the wake of Annie Ernaux and Virginia Woolf, Elena Medel weaves together the intimate and the political from a rarely read point of view. A powerful new feminist voice A beautiful first novel of mastery and intelligence. Wonderful A powerfully strange, translucent, but empathetic novel