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Elena Medel

Biography

Elena Medel

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 15 languages. She published her prize-winning first collection of poetry, MY FIRST BIKINI, when she was 16 years old.

Elena Medel

Books by Elena Medel

The Wonders
written by Elena Medel, translated by Lizzie Davis and Thomas Bunstead - Fiction

Maria moved to Madrid in 1969, leaving her daughter with her family but hoping to save enough to take care of her one day. She worked as a housekeeper, then a caregiver and later a cleaner, and somehow she was always taking care of someone else. Two generations later, in 2018, Alicia was working at the snack shop in Madrid’s Atocha train station when it overflowed with protestors and strikers. All women --- and so many of them --- protesting what? Alicia wasn’t entirely sure. She couldn’t have known that Maria was among them. Alicia didn’t have time for marches; she was just trying to hang on until the end of her shift, when she might meet someone to take her away for a few hours, to make her forget.