These Catalan plays can perhaps best be seen in contrast to the British tradition of 'state of the nation' and 'in yer face' playwrighting. The plays are somewhat enigmatic and even elliptical. They represent elements of a more 'European' less 'UK' playwrighting style with echoes of early Pinter, maybe David Mercer. There is just a hint of Mark Ravenhill/Sarah Kane but any potential violence is purely implied.The Sales Complete is an apparently non-political work concerned with three characters involved in the selling and buying of an apartment - solitary souls who are lost in the desert of the modern world, seeking an arm to cling on to so that they may be saved. It has a social context but this is subservient to the characters' stilted emotional interaction. A collision between the personal and the political; a past affair that might just rekindle and present corruption in 'the party'. Can he persuade her not to cause trouble for the party leadership or will she ignore the feelings she still has for him to bring the leadership down? "Black Beach" is more naturalistic but even here we are not really told exactly what the politics of 'the party' is.

Remei, the main character of Beloved, is a prestigious illustrator in her fifties who considers herself an attractive, happily married mother. Yet one evening, sitting in the back seat of the family car, she clearly predicts that her younger husband, a principal violinist in an orchestra, will fall in love with the second violinist, the woman sitting beside him, as they head to their home to rehearse. Neither Remei's husband nor the young woman have realised this yet. But Remei has. This devastating certainty leads Remei, a determined woman who since childhood has had to fight to survive, to a harsh realization of what it is to grow old inside. She must suddenly accept the vulnerability of marital love, the addictive dependence of motherhood, and the expiration date on her artistic career. We experience the progressive emotional and physiological transformation of a mature woman who fights against age, a woman that when she goes jogging, has a constant inner monologue in which she wel

In Wilder Winds, Bel Olid presents a stunning collection of short stories that draw on notions of individual freedom, abuses of power, ingrained social violence, life on the outskirts of society, and inevitable differences. Alongside these are small acts of kindness capable of changing the world and making it a better place. Like flowers stubbornly growing and blooming in the cracks of a pavement, Olid's work seeks out beauty without renouncing truth, and never avoids conflict or intimacy. Wilder Winds creates scenes and fragile, yet hardy characters that will stay with the reader for years to come.