arts & culture

Backstory, with its main store at C/ de Mallorca 330 and smaller, delightfully formed Backstory: The Shortlist now at Carrer del Rec 46 in El Born, have raised the standard for English-language bookstores in Barcelona, with brilliant selections, helpful and friendly staff and a genuine and tireless urge to engage with the book-reading public. The two-floor main store has very regular book events of all types, with Migrant Tales - Pop-Up Book Club a prime example.

In their own words, this pop-up book club will "look at three novels that explore life as a migrant, or a child of migrants, in the United States. We’ll look at themes of home, belonging, identity and language from three female authors whose families came from very different parts of the world – but whose experience as migrants in the US was surprisingly similar. This is first of three Migrant Tales Book Clubs – The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros will be discussed on Monday, Americanah by Chimamanda Adichie Ngozi on May 18, and The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan on July 6.