The Others

In 1837, at the height of the Carlist wars, a young Prussian man named Rudolf von Wielemann heads South to fight for the “Order.” Finding himself left behind in the ruins of an abandoned city destroyed by war, he tentatively navigates his new surroundings in which his sense of self begins to distort and transform. A novel on place and (un)belonging, The Others masterfully intertwines humor and tragedy to explore Wielemann’s encounters with eccentric and enigmatic characters, and his unfamiliar surroundings. Garrigasait’s precise and intricately constructed prose, interspersed by beautifully lyrical passages on music and nature, invites readers to delve into reflections on family, politics, and place.

“This really is an excellent book as Garrigasait tells a very clever story, uses ribald humour to portray the military and the Catalans, mocks the Prussians and raises some serious issues, while delving into the history of his own region. Translator Tiago Miller clearly had some fun, trying to convey the Leida dialect of Catalan into colloquial English, as he tells us in the afterword.” —The Modern Novel  
 “The Others forces us to leave our comfort zone, and to steer away from indifference, banality, and conformity. A magnificent book!”—Sam Abrams, El Mundo   
“This fantastic book provides us with a reflection of our modern-day selves. The echoes with the present are so intense that it leaves you breathless after every phrase. The Others has the courage to force us to ask ourselves: ‘What skeletons lurk in our cupboards?’”—Toni Sala, Ara  

Raül Garrigasait (Solsona, 1979) is an award-winning novelist, essayist and translator. His novel, The Others, won both the Premi Llibreter and the Premi Òmnium in 2017. Garrigasait translates from Greek and German and has brought the likes of Plato and Goethe into the Catalan language. A doctor in Classical Philology at University of Barcelona, he also acts as the director of La Casa dels Clàssics, a project that works to promote the creation and promotion of universal classics in the Catalan language.
Tiago Miller (London, 1987) is a writer and translator based in Lleida. He has worked on translations of a number of Catalan writers such as Pere Calders and Raül Garrigasait and his articles on language, politics and literature have appeared in Núvol and La República. He is currently working on the first book-length translation of Montserrat Roig into English.