Ara Llibres, Spain, 2009, 257 pages
Original title: La memòria de les formigues
Genre: fiction
Catalan and Spanish text available

Joana has stopped chasing success: instead she spends her time cleaning up the beach with a tractor. As the machine traces drawings on the sand, she magically relives her past. This voyage gradually reveals her introduction to love, her relationship with her grandmother and mentor, her conversations with her husband, the strange lives of those around her, and the traces left by those no longer here. Small remnants of a life full of little fables and discoveries, like the ants that carry home to their nests all the things they encounter in their path. A novel composed of moving stories whose heartfelt words and wisdom reveal the true plot: the tapestry of existence.

Constantine Bértolo said about The Memory of Ants: “This novel is like the red apple the Wicked Witch offers Snow White: it conceals an evil ingenuity that emerges slowly. The writing simulates transparency, nostalgia, glitter and yet carries verve, rage, roots. It contains an oracle and we must be attentive in order to interpret it. What stays with me is the character of the grandmother: she is the owner of the words that construct its sharp narrative echo’.

“A dizzying tale.”
- EL PERIÓDICO

“A novel full of reflections and small details, poetry, as sweet as it needs to be”
-AVUI

“A sincere and emotional work, with its feet on the ground, and which never denies the force of the imagination.”
- QUE LEER

“A sensitivity that allows us to feel the sweet ardor of gold dust that remains on the fingers after retaining, for a moment, the truth of what we are. Frail shadows walking urgently”
- Ana María Moix, author of Julia

“A narrative voice so extraordinary that you don’t remember having read it: you remember having felt, having talked to her.”
- Ricard Ruiz Garzón, author and journalist

“It’s like Snow White’s red apple: an interior evil ingenuity that emerges slowly. Writing that simulates transparency, nostalgia, and lucidity, and yet is full of strength, rage and roots. It contains an oracle and we must be attentive in order to interpret it.”
- Constantino Bértolo

“Through small windows of nostalgia, Iolanda Batallé shows us a story full of relationships and loneliness in a frighteningly fragile balance, transmitting everything she writes and even more.”
- Laia Fabregas

“Opens the can of worms of a generation accused of not living up to expectations.”
- Isidre Grau

Rights sold
Spain: Gadir