London Under Snow - Jordi Llavina Translation - Douglas Suttle

London Under Snow is a delicate, compact, mature and profound collection of short stories about winter by Jordi Llavina. Six fragments of different lives in six different moments. In this beautifully written collection, the characters come face to face with their different lives and pasts, all of which are full of ghosts and memories. Sensibility courses through each story, all of them written with a meticulous eye to detail and a careful lyricism that pays tribute to the human condition and the society that we have created.

Bringing winter and Christmas celebrations in a variety of places and cultures to life in a selection of beautifully written short stories, Llavina mixes personal experiences with fictional characters to blur the lines between fiction and reality.

Five days before I was to set off for the English capital, a colossal snowstorm had set alarm bells ringing and I was worried that the thick blanket of snow shown on the newspapers’ front pages would turn into a terrible layer of ice – I didn’t realise that the services in London actually work reasonably well: snowploughs, workers with reflective jackets and armed with spades and salt all work together to remove the settled snow. On the television, Hyde Park was an indistinct, indivisible white, and all of the hated lead-grey squirrels had sought refuge inside tree trunks or litter bins. The typical phlegmatic British character had been slightly disrupted: the special news reports showed images from Chelsea of playful teenagers building snowmen against the snowy white blanket and keeping bottles of beer cool in the midriffs of their creations. They very sensibly buried the bottles deep into the bodies, patting them down well so that only the bottle necks were showing and making them look like penises. There were occasional acts of vandalism: one person smashed a shop window while others were found fighting in the street – their splattered blood casually imitating some piece of Pollock artwork there on the immaculate canvas. Stupendously smart City workers were seen shouting for taxis that happened to be on strike that day and which were lined up along the road. The file of black cabs, the funerary quality so typical of London taxis, in the middle of a monotone backdrop of absolute white, lent the scene a dreamlike quality, like something out of a Giacomelli photograph. This was three days before my flight and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to go or not. Rather than abating, the storm was getting worse.

‘Llavina exhibits his great ability to successfully penetrate our psyches.’ Lluís Muntada, El País

‘Presided over by tenderness and truth, Jordi Llavina’s stories are beautiful, cathartic masterpieces.’ Anna M. Gil, La Vanguàrdia

‘The narrative fabric of these stories is the voice - sensitive, powerful, complicated and dedicated - that Llavina creates for each of us. Almost personal, he whispers gently in our ears.’ Ramon Pla i Arxé, La Vanguàrdia

‘In London Under Snow, Llavina recreates the most delicate and intimate aspects of life with great success.’ Sam Abrams, Diari Ara