The Wonders: Elena Medel and Lizzie Davis in conversation with Anna Solomon
4:00 pm PT | 5:00 pm MT | 6:00 pm CT | 7:00 pm ET
Virtual Event
Award-winning Spanish poet and novelist Elena Medel is a force to be reckoned with, seamlessly blending poetic lyricism with exhilarating storytelling. Her new novel, The Wonders, is an intergenerational masterpiece, telling the interwoven stories of Maria and Alicia, two women searching for stability and meaning in Madrid. Set against the backdrop of protest and social unrest, their individual lives converge, bringing half a century of the feminist movement to life.
Medel joins translator Lizzie Davis and Pushcart Prize Winner Anna Solomon for an illuminating conversation on class, sex, desire, and the irrevocable interconnectedness of our lives.
Presented in partnership with The Center for Fiction.
Elena Medel is a Spanish poet and the founder and publisher of La Bella Varsovia, an independent poetry publishing house. Medel was the first woman ever to win the prestigious Francisco Umbral Prize, for her debut novel The Wonders, which was also longlisted for the Finestres Award and has been translated into twelve languages. She published her prizewinning first collection of poetry, My First Bikini, when she was sixteen years old.
Lizzie Davis is a translator from Spanish and Italian to English and editor at Coffee House Press. Her recent projects include My First Bikini by Elena Medel (Jai-Alai Books) and a co-translation of Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions with Valeria Luiselli (Coffee House Press). Her translation of Juan Cárdenas’s Ornamental was published by Coffee House Press in 2020.