Bruno Blog

Based on the true story of the “Cañón Catalán”, the great baritone of Sant Andreu who triumphed in Spain and America singing zarzuelas. A story of adventure, espionage and revolution between Barcelona and Latin America in the fifties.

Joan Gual, who is part of the Quinta del Biberón (baby bottle generation), has very clear that he does not want to die in a ridiculous war and decides to desert. Here begins the adventure of a man who from a very young age wants to pursue his dream and exploits his talent, a unique voice that, after the war, leads him to become a world-famous baritone. But when he is on tour in Latin America, he is unexpectedly involved in a espionage and counter-espionage plot that will put him to the test, also in love affairs. Surrounded by guerrillas, mobsters, extravagant folklore singers, exiled Nazis, leftist that have escaped from Franco’s dictatorship and personalities such as Kubala, Pau Casals or General Castro himself, Joan Gual will be forced to overcome himself and overcome luck to become a brave and right man.

With an exciting narrative pace, the novel takes the reader on a journey through Latin America and gives him all the tools to understand the past and social movements that are now history. Xavier Gual narrates the fictional life of his grandfather, the great Catalan baritone who made a fortune as a zarzuela singer and whose nickname was “el Cañón Catalán”.

Before he died, Magda, Thomas’s wife, was planning a trip to Vladivostok with him. Two years later, Tomás tries to find meaning in his daily life as a widower and retiree: reads the books that she left him, cycles the hills of his neighborhood, and meets his best friend, who insists on finding him a new partner. But that summer will change completely with the arrival of a new neighbor and her son, causing Tomás to rethink what to do with the last years of his life.

With a brutally honest tone, Lluís Oliván pictures a bittersweet old age and a life full of contradictions and moments of vitality, and shows us that as long as we keep walking our way, we can affirm that we are still alive.

Kosei-San lives out his retirement in a modest, lonely cabin on the edge of a cliff in the Californian Rockies. The old Japanese man does not rest, he watches the windswept rocks, as it is the place chosen by many suicides to throw themselves over the edge of life. When he spots someone walking melancholically, without a camera or guide, to the edge of the abyss, he rushes out to meet them. He talks to the person and begs him to share a cup of tea in his hut. Through this ceremony, the old man warms his spirits as he searches for a way out that will allow him to reconcile with life. Kosei-San also keeps a secret that has allowed him to know that existence gives second and third chances.

Un té para curar el alma is a story full of sensitivity and wisdom that reminds us of the value of life.

With that fresh and conscious voice that is her hallmark, Míriam Tirado has created a web of stories centered on the feelings that have surfaced at a time of great personal, social and global intensity: fear, resignation, confusion, relief, sadness, hope. They are everyday stories of people very similar to you who become impatient, frustrated, and doubtful, but who also learn to look at life from the point of view of awareness, to trust, and to flow with the present. A book to feel, to welcome the emotions that this book and what happens in your day-to-day life can provoke in you. Because life goes on unstoppably and, whatever the circumstances, we can approach it from connection, fullness, and awareness.