Backstory Talks: Mar García Puig
By Kit Macdonald
On a single day, writer and editor Mar García Puig gave birth to twins and was elected to the Spanish Parliament as a member of the insurgent left-wing party Podemos. What might have been the best day of her life became the start of a terrifying ordeal – her grip on reality began to slip as she grappled with various pressures, including uncertainty, the weight of expectation, and the rampant misogyny she was encountering in both of her new roles, mother and politician.
García Puig defiantly looked outwards, "examining the imbrication of madness and motherhood across centuries of science, myth and politics, while dissecting how women have been pathologised and banished from public life." The History of the Vertebrate, the book she wrote about the experience, was originally published in Catalan in 2023 and has been translated into Spanish, French, English and Brazilian Portuguese. Garcia Puig will discuss the English translation here, in a conversation with Rose Bialer, translator and cultural worker based in Barcelona.