Irene Solà is a Catalan writer and artist, winner of the Documenta Prize for first novels, the Llibres Anagrama Prize, the European Union Prize for Literature, and the Amadeu Oller Poetry Prize. Her artwork has been exhibited in the Whitechapel Gallery.
Her newest novel is When I Sing, Mountains Dance.
At the Guardian Solà tagged ten wilderness stories that transcend "the passive landscape or the backdrop of compelling beauty and instead appreciates it as an active entity," including:
How Much of These Hills is Gold by C Pam ZhangRead about another entry on the list.
The wilderness in the context of the historical North American great outdoors has mostly been explained by white masculine voices andcommonly focuses on macho white characters. As a consequence, the collective imaginary associated with this time and place often disregards and erases other points of view in this fabricated white-centric US west. In How Much of These Hills is Gold Zhang tells a story of endurance and survival during the California gold rush from the point of view of Lucy, a young girl of Chinese descent. Lucy’s lyrical and immersive voice invites the reader to reflect on whose stories have been told from this period and setting and whose have been neglected.
--Marshal Zeringue
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