Bel Olid
Bel Olid (Mataró, Maresme, 1977) is a writer, translator and lecturer in Literature Studies at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
She has been very active as a translator into Catalan and, to a lesser extent, into Spanish, mainly of children's books, from German, English, French, Italian and Spanish.
She became known as an author in 2010 when she received the Documenta Prize for her novel Una terra solitària and the Rovelló Essay Prize for her study Les heroïnes contrataquen. Models literaris contra l'universal masculí a la literatura infantil i juvenil. Two years later she received the Roc Boronat Prize for La mala reputació, a collection of short stories which was very well received by readers and critics alike. In 2016 she published another short stories collection, Vents més salvatges, the picture book Gegantíssima and she was awarded the Apel·les Mestres Prize for Viure amb la Hilda (i els seus inconvenients). In Vides aturades (2017) she portrays the testimony of people seeking refuge in Europe. In Feminisme de butxaca, kit de supervivència (2017), which reached its fourth edition within a year, Olid reflects on gender discrimination in our society. In 2018 she published her first book of poems, in a bilingual edition Catalan-Spanish: Ferida, udol, viatge, illa.
Bel Olid regularly collaborates in many branches of the cultural media and written press. She was president of CEATL (European Council of Literary Translators' Associations, 2013-2015), and from March 2015 she is president of Associació d'Escriptors en Llengua Catalana (AELC – Association of Catalan Language Writers).
Escriure
Sempre havia pensat que escriure, com llegir, era una cosa que feia sola. Les paraules i jo, com un mar que va i que torna i que es desplega i se m’empassa. I surar-hi, fent la morta, i sentir el sol a la cara, o la tempesta. Patir, a estones, però saber que no m’hi ofego, que hi haurà una imatge o una idea que em faran surar.
Sempre havia pensat que la llibertat màxima era això, un llibre a les mans, o un document obert a la pantalla, i hores per abandonar-m’hi. En un hotel o un aeroport, de nits, quan els nens no ploren. A mig matí, quan tothom creu que treballo. Sempre millor en un no-lloc, en un no-temps un buit d’obligacions, sense rentadora per fer ni ningú per alimentar. Quan no podia ser, escriure era pensar-hi. A la dutxa, al metro o al súper, sentir que a dins tot és la història que creix fins que hi hagi l’estona de posar-hi paraules.
Anàvem amb cotxe, feia dies que conduíem, ens havíem cansat de la música, quedaven hores encara per a la pròxima parada. A banda i banda, el desert. Era el no-lloc perfecte.
–Explica’m una història –li vaig dir, i vaig apagar la ràdio.
Ell parlava i jo conduïa i me l’escoltava, i de vegades el rectificava. No podia ser que aquell personatge fes allò, ho veia claríssim. De vegades hi afegia detalls, finestres, colors.
–Tens raó, sí, és així com dius –responia amb els ulls brillants.
De cop em vaig adonar que estàvem escrivint junts. No sobre el paper, no en un document de text, encara. Estàvem fent junts allò que sempre havia fet sola: pensar, explorar, conèixer els personatges, saber si són feliços. Meravellar-nos perquè hi ha una història que s’infla, que lleva com un pa que estem pastant a quatre mans. I la felicitat de compartir-ho així em va travessar tota. Escriure amb algú quan sempre has escrit sola és com abraçar un cos i donar-t’hi quan el sexe sempre havia sigut masturbar-se. És construir un desig més gran, és atrevir-te a enfilar un camí desconegut i tenir al costat algú que et dóna la mà i ve amb tu. Algú que porta aigua per si te n’havies oblidat. És provar i escoltar i jugar i riure i sorprendre’s del plaer propi tant com del de l’altre.
Hi he pensat molt, darrerament, sobre si he escrit mai sola de debò. Potser sí que he escrit més sola, però mai sola del tot. Hi havia sempre a mà els llibres que havia llegit, les converses que havia tingut, les idees que havia sentit aquí i allà. Hi havia algú que potser ho llegiria, hi havia una companyia en potència. No estem tan sols com deia Rilke, si escrivim. Estar sol de debò és no molestar-te a escriure, és estar convençut que és inútil comunicar-se. Cal el silenci i cal la calma, és clar. Cal una certa solitud. Però és sempre una solitud circumstancial.
Continuaré escrivint sola, com continuaré masturbant-me. No es tracta de renunciar als espais propis, al plaer de conèixer-se el cos o les neures. Però ara que sé que també puc escriure acompanyada, quines ganes d’inventar mons compartits. I quina alegria saber que la vida, quan creus que la tens per la mà, et sorprèn amb nous paisatges.
English translation
Writing
I had always thought that writing, like reading, was something I did on my own. Words and myself, like an ocean that ebbs and flows and breaks and swallows me. Just to float there, as if I were laid out, feeling the sun on my face, or the storm. A degree of pain is involved, but I know that I won’t drown: an image or an idea will keep me afloat.
I had always thought that the greatest freedom was this: a book in my hands or an open document on the screen, and hours at my disposal. In a hotel or at an airport, during the night when the children aren’t crying; mid-morning when everyone understands I’m at work. It’s always better in a no-place, in a no-place void of obligations, without laundry pending or anyone to feed. When it simply wasn’t possible, writing was thinking about it. In the shower, on the underground or in the supermarket, feeling inside that everything is the story that grows, until it can be put into words.
We were in the car, had been driving for days and become tired of music. It would be hours before our next stop. All around us, the desert. It was the perfect no-place.
– Tell me a story – I said to him, and I switched the radio off.
He was speaking and I was driving and listening, and sometimes I corrected him. That character would do no such thing, I was quite categoric about it. Sometimes I added details: windows, colours.
– You’re right, absolutely, it’s just as you say – he replied, his eyes all aglow.
I suddenly realised that we were writing together. Not on paper, not in a document, not yet. We were doing together what I had always done alone: thinking, exploring, getting to know the characters, finding out if they’re happy. Astonished because there’s a story that swells, rising like a loaf that four hands are kneading. And the happiness of sharing it filled my whole being. Writing with someone when you’ve always written alone is like embracing a body and surrendering to it when sex had always meant masturbating. It means building a greater sense of desire, daring to take an unknown path and having someone by your side who takes you by the hand and goes with you. Someone who is carrying water in case you had forgotten it. It’s trying it out and listening and playing and laughing and being taken aback by one’s own pleasure as well as by that of the other.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about whether I have ever really written alone. Perhaps I’ve written more alone, but never completely alone. The books I had read were always to hand, the conversations I had shared, the ideas that I had heard here and there. There was someone who perhaps would read me; there was companionship, potentially. We are not as alone as Rilke asserted, if we write. To really be alone is not bothering to write, it means being convinced that communication is useless. Silence and calm are necessary, of course, as is a degree of solitude. But it’s always a circumstantial solitude.
I shall continue writing alone, as I shall carry on masturbating. It’s not about denying one’s own spaces, the pleasure of familiarising oneself with one’s own body or one’s hang-ups. But now that I know that I can also write in a duo, what an urge to create shared worlds! And how splendid to discover that life, just when you thought you had it under control, can surprise you with new landscapes.
(Translated from Catalan by Jacqueline Hurtley)
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