‘Physical education’ is an “exploration of identity through the body” set in the 90s and starring a young woman who rebels against the vision of herself that society imposes on her.
“There is a lot of talk about the little emotional education that men have and we see that they are trying (at least) to remedy that, but there is hardly any talk about the bodily education of women and I wanted to know where it came from all that modesty and all that ignorance“. It is born from this reflection physical education, the new novel by the writer Rosario Villajos (Crdoba, 1978) who won the 65th Biblioteca Breve de Seix Barral Prize this noon, endowed with 30,000 euros. Another 701 manuscripts were candidates for the prize.
Set in the early 90’s physical education draws the portrait of Catalina, an adolescent marked by a complicated relationship with her own body and by the resentment towards a world bent on making her guilty for being a woman. After suffering a serious mishap at the house of her best friend, located on the outskirts of her, the young woman needs to return to her home as soon as possible, so she will have no choice but to hitchhike. She doesn’t like the idea of it very much. but much worse is what awaits you if you do not obey the curfew imposed by their parents.
“Catalina forges her personal rebellion against the world because she sees how her entrance into adolescence supposes a unexpected source of conflict. She regrets never living up to what is expected of her and that is something that anguishes her. This is simply the story of a girl who refuses to disappear in all those taboos and restrictions that grip her,” explains Villajos, who affirms that the book highlights the stories on which the values of an entire generation are built. A generation that is that of the Spain of optimism and abundancebut also that of the women who disappeared on the news and Alcsser’s girls, the one for whom the ideal of beauty was Kate Moss and who received an unreal aesthetic image on television.
Villajos does not hide the political ambition of a novel that fully enters the intense debate on the law of s is s, the recent scandal at the Feroz Awards party and the increase in sexual assaults among adolescents. Looking back to remember where we come from is a need that Villajos addresses from his own memory, although he qualifies: “I don’t believe in autofiction. I believe that everything is fiction, even what seems most autobiographical. Memory is selective and deceptive. I believe that the interpretation that is made of memory is more important than memory itself.
Elected unanimously, the jury of the Biblioteca Breve 2023, made up of Pilar Eusamio, Pere Gimferrer, Ins Martín Rodrigo, Elena Ramírez and last year’s winner, Isaac Rosa, highlighted the novel as “a narrative voice that explores its own identity through through the body and that, in doing so, collects the feelings of a generation and makes it an experience that is both unique and universal.“.
That “physical education” of the title, reminiscent of flaubertianasdoes not refer to a single education, but is used by the protagonist in a literal sense but also metaphorically to talk about inherited values and what women are taught about their own bodies, highlighting the stories on which the values of an entire generation are built. “Values that are barely remembered today”, notes the bookstore Pilar Eusamio, “because the silence in which this very young girl is raised when talking about these issues refers to tabs that survive today to a good extent. We have to read it to learn everything we’ve forgotten about knowing ourselves.”
“In addition to being magnificent and very literary, it is very intelligently composed and enters into discussions of today even though it is set 30 years ago,” agrees the writer Isaac Rosa. “Talk about topics we are discussing today and it does so through the story, through what the protagonist narrates. She talks about freedom, guilt and desire, body and consent, a word of full relevance “.
Words of praise to those who sum up the editor Elena Ramrez, who states that this work, which Seix Barral will publish -surely with intent- the next March 8“has a literary approach that already from the title puts on the table one of the pending subjects of our society, and it does so from the narrative voice of an adolescent who explores her identity through the body, in tune with this moment of necessary reflection.” around gender issues.
Villajos, who assures that his book “would not have interested a decade ago because it is a women’s story told for women“, defends that the body is the field where all battles are fought, where who we are is decided and also where the fears, tensions and violence of each era are reflected. The writer has also recognized that “writing is a way to meet I wanted to understand the resentment that I have carried for years, so I went to the time when that resentment arises, and although my personal story is not that of Catalina, I know that I have common feelings with her and I empathize enough to feel firsthand what happened to other girls and women”.
Owner of a generational and autofictional work, Villajos, trained in Fine Arts, previously published two novels: Ramona (Mr. Griffin, 2019), a survey, without nostalgia but with bitterness and humor, in the memory of the generation that today is around 40; and the magnificent the tooth (Aristas Martínez, 2021), the story of a young immigrant in London preBrexit that demonstrates how the tribulations and realities of the 21st century world contribute to the wreck of physical and mental health of the individual.
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