Backstory English Bookshop - Events

Buy the book here!

Join us for a very special evening with Catalan author Marta Orriols and her translator into English, Mara Faye Lethem. This unique encounter will explore the creative collaboration between writer and translator, offering an intimate look into the process of bringing Marta’s acclaimed novel Aprendre a parlar amb les plantes (Edicions del Periscopi, 2018) into English as Learning to Talk to Plants (Pushkin Press, 2020).

Marta and Mara first worked together during the prestigious Art Omi Translation Lab residency, a space dedicated to fostering dialogue between authors and translators. Their ongoing collaboration offers a rare glimpse into how a literary voice travels across languages, cultures, and readerships.
Together, they will reflect on the writing and translation process, the nuances of creative exchange, and how literature transcends borders to reach new audiences.

About the Book
Learning to Talk to Plants tells the story of Paula, a neonatologist who must navigate grief and loss after the sudden death of her partner. With tender precision and emotional depth, Marta Orriols crafts a novel that is both intimate and universal—an exploration of resilience, love, and the fragile ways we learn to live again. Originally published in Catalan by Edicions del Periscopi, it has been translated into numerous languages, with the English edition appearing at Pushkin Press.

About Marta Orriols
Marta Orriols Balaguer is a Barcelona-based writer with a background in art history. She is the author of Anatomia de les distàncies curtes (2016), Aprendre a parlar amb les plantes (2018), winner of the Òmnium Prize for Best Novel of the Year and translated into 16 languages, and Dolça introducció al caos (2020). Her latest novel, La possibilitat de dir-ne casa (2023), was published by Proa (Catalan) and Destino (Spanish). In addition to her novels, she has contributed to short story collections and literary projects in Spain and abroad.

About Mara Faye Lethem
Mara Faye Lethem is an award-winning literary translator based in Barcelona. She has translated works by some of the most renowned contemporary Catalan and Spanish authors, receiving recognition such as the Spain-USA Foundation Translation Prize, the Premi Internacional Joan B. Cendrós, and the Nota Bene Prize. Her work has appeared in Granta, The Paris Review, The New York Times Book Review, and McSweeney’s. In addition to her translation career, she is a PhD candidate at the University of St Andrews, focusing on 20th-century Catalan literature, and the author of La llegada del Bebé X.

BUY THE BOOK HERE!
Palestinian poet Samer Abu Hawwash will be joining us for the launch of the English translation of his new collection, From the River to the Sea (Banipal Books, 2025), joined by his translator Robin Moger.

Originally published in Arabic in the summer of 2024, these 24 poems confront the horrors of the Gaza genocide while weaving them into the longer history of Palestinian exile and trauma. With stark, unforgettable imagery, Abu Hawwash captures both the brutality of destruction and the unbearable weight of witnessing: children’s frozen gazes, the rubble that refuses to be silent, the torment of language itself in the face of war.

This book is more than poetry: it is a lexicon of resistance, remembrance, and testimony. It asks how art can bear witness when words themselves seem broken — and insists on the necessity of trying.

Join us for an evening of conversation and readings as we reflect on literature’s role in documenting violence, preserving memory, and speaking across borders.

### Author Bio

Samer Abu Hawwash (b. 1972, Sidon, Lebanon) is a Palestinian poet, writer, and translator. From the River to the Sea is his eleventh collection of poetry, published in Arabic in 2024 and now available in English. His first collection, Life is Printed in New York, appeared in 1997. In addition to his own work, he has translated into Arabic the poetry of Charles Bukowski, Langston Hughes, Robert Bly, and Kim Addonizio, as well as more than forty prose works by internationally acclaimed authors including Jack Kerouac, Yann Martel, and Paul Auster.

### Translator Bio

Robin Moger is a renowned literary translator from Arabic to English. His translations include works by poets and novelists across the Arab world, consistently bringing vital new voices into English with precision and sensitivity. His collaboration with Samer Abu Hawwash on From the River to the Sea captures both the rhythm and raw force of the original Arabic, making this collection accessible to new audiences while preserving its searing poetic intensity.