Backstory English Bookshop - Events

We are pleased to welcome the American poet and writer Julie Carr to Barcelona to read from The Garden, the first book in the trilogy titled Overflow. She will be joined in conversation by Emily McBride.

The Garden is dedicated to two seminal figures in Carr’s life: the painter Tony Robbin, who paints four-dimensional space, and the theoretical physicist, feminist, and philosopher, Karen River Barad. Through a spirited series of fractured and interwoven narratives, The Garden reorients themes of time, war, Jewishness, memory, techno-biology, friendship, and grief. This work of essay-auto-fiction embraces the porous vulnerability of beings appearing in the overflow, the violence and rapture of the ongoing “now.”

> "Julie Carr’s writing unmoors knowledges, bidden and unbidden, that enter and shape us, our perceptions, and those we love. She is alert to history, to the frailties of the body, and to the specificities and betrayals of both. . .The Garden is filled with a deep and feeling intelligence that will stay with and work on me for some time." —Christina Sharpe

Julie Carr is the author of fifteen books of poetry and prose, including Mud, Blood, and Ghosts and Underscore. She lives in Denver where she co-runs Counterpath, teaches at the University of Colorado Boulder, & hosts the podcast “Return the Key: Jewish Questions for Everyone.”

Emily McBride is a Canadian-born editor, writer, and translator living in Barcelona. Her debut novel Queen Mab will be published by FSG this summer, with a Catalan edition also forthcoming from Angle Editorial.

A casual (but coordinated) coffee break to meet new friends, take a Zoom break, and get your AM caffeine fix.

Stop by for a few minutes or stay the whole time. Bring a friend or wander in solo. Come for the coffee and company, or just bring a book to read while surrounded by other in-real-life, community-seeking humans. Come by every Friday, or just when you happen to be in town. Make it whatever you need it to be that week. It's not an *event* per se, but we hope these Friday meet-ups can become a fixture of the bookshop!

Gathering spot will be in the downstairs area of the bookshop (near the Community Library). Coffee and tea are 1.50€ and can be purchased at the cash register upstairs. Find more info on our Instagram (@backstorybookshop) or website (www.backstorybookshop.com).