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Bel Olid

Bel Olid is a writer, translator and teacher. From 2005 to 2019, they taught in the Department of Catalan Philology at the UAB, and currently work in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures of the University of Chicago. In the field of narrative, they debuted in 2009 with the story Crida ben fort, Estela! (Fineo), which deals with child sexual abuse and won the Qwerty Award for Best Children’s Book of the Year. Throughout their career, they have continued to publish literature for children and young adults, a genre about which they have also written theoretical reflections, such as Les heroïnes contraataquen (Pagès Editors, 2011), winner of the Rovelló Prize, an essay about gender roles in children’s literature. Their first novel, Una terra solitària (Empúries, 2011), portraying three women from the same family and exploring issues such as migration, sexuality and abuse, was awarded the Documenta 2010 Prize. They have also explored the essay genre with titles that are central to the dissemination of feminism, including Feminisme de butxaca: kit de supervivència (Angle editorial, 2017), Follem? (Bridge, 2019) and A contrapel (Destino, 2020). They translated Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble, a seminal work of feminist thinking, into Catalan (Problemes de gènere, Angle Editorial, 2021). They were president of the Association of Catalan Language Writers (AELC) from 2015 to 2022, and currently write for media such as Núvol and Ara newspaper.

Update: 3 October 2022

Contents

Publications

Has participated in

Rebecca Solnit

Writing, a gesture of hope

Inauguration of the Classics Festival

Anger: the beast we live with

Conversation with Douglas Stuart and Bel Olid

Writing is my riot

Conversation with Jeanette Winterson

The exhibition as seen by...

Eloy Fernández Porta, Bel Olid, Najat El Hachmi, Miquel Missé and Tania Adam

Kosmopolis 2019

10th Amplified Literature Fest

Mapping Identities

Panel discussion with Anita Heiss, Stefanie Kremser, and Bel Olid

Dialogue between Jane Lazarre and Bel Olid

Maternity, Activism and Democracy

Kosmopolis 2017

9th Amplified Literature Fest

Bel Olid and Borja Bagunyà. Moderator: Jordi Nopca. Stage direction: Marc Caellas

The Stomach of the Writers (2). Can’t Catalan literature stomach excess?