Francesca de Barcelona

NÈSTOR LUJÁN PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL NOVELS

An extraordinary woman who wants to be a surgeon, an impossible love, an insatiable struggle. An enlightening story of the Barcelona of the 14th century.

Barcelona, 1382. Francesca is a fifteen year old Christian girl who helps her grandmother Bonanada to work as a midwife. Her aunt teaches her the secrets of the trade and introduces her to the mastery of the remedial plants, but she does not have enough, and although she lives in a very humble environment, she has the firm determination to become a doctor and a surgeon. There is only one problem: this is a career reserved for men and making a place for herself is almost a folly.

Thanks to her job as a caregiver, she often visits the Call. There she will meet Astruc, a young boy from a group of doctors who wants to study medicine. They both agree to share their knowledge: Francesca will teach him everything she knows about plants and he will give her access to his books. But medicine is not her only passion: Francesca is in love with Martí, her childhood friend, and with this love she will start her adult life, an exciting life full of obstacles, love, betrayals and passions.

Based on a true story and with an absolutely enlightening narrative, Laia Perearnau masterfully takes us to the Barcelona of the 14th century, when illnesses were rife, and makes us vibrate with the life of an extraordinary woman, full of determination, who fought tirelessly against the limits imposed on the women of her time.