Irene Solà

In this Catalan name, the first or paternal surname is Solà and the second or maternal family name is Sáez; both are generally joined by the conjunction "i".

Irene Solà
Born	Irene Solà Sáez (1990-08-17) August 17, 1990 Malla, Catalonia, Spain
Occupation	Writer and poet
Language	Catalan
Nationality	Spanish
Alma mater	University of Barcelona University of Sussex
Notable awards	Maria Àngels Anglada Prize European Union Prize for Literature
Website
irenesola.hotglue.me

Irene Solà Sáez (born 17 August 1990) is a Spanish writer and artist. She has exhibited her work at the CCCB in Barcelona and the Whitechapel Gallery in London. Her first book of poems, Bèstia won the 2012 Amadeu Oller Prize and her novel Els dics, the 2017 Documenta Prize.

She has a degree in fine arts from the University of Barcelona and a master's in literature, film and visual culture from the University of Sussex. Her first book of poems, Bèstia (Galerada, 2012), was awarded the Amadeu Oller Poetry Prize and has been translated into English (as Beast, Shearsman Books, 2017). Her first novel, Els dics (The Dams, L'Altra Editorial, 2018), won the Documenta prize and was awarded a grant for literary creation by the Catalan Department of Culture. In 2018, she was a resident writer at the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center of George Mason University (Virginia, United States) and in late 2019 she was selected to participate in the Art Omi: Writers Ledig House programme (New York).

In 2019, she was awarded the Premi Llibres Anagrama de Novel·la for Canto jo i la muntanya balla (When I Sing, Mountains Dance). The same year, she also received the Núvol Prize, and the Cálamo Prize for the Spanish edition of the book. In 2020, she won the European Union Prize for Literature and the Maria Àngels Anglada Prize. In 2022 the book was also shortlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation. In 2023 the book was shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize

Works

• Canto jo i la muntanya balla (Barcelona: Anagrama, 2019)
  • When I Sing, Mountains Dance, translated by Mara Faye Lethem (Graywolf Press, 2022)
• Els dics (L'Altra Editorial, 2018)
• Bèstia (Galerada, 2012)
  • Beast, translated by Oscar Holloway (Shearsman Books, 2017)
• Et vaig donar ulls i vas mirar les tenebres (Barcelona: Anagrama, 2023)
  • I Gave You Eyes and You Looked towards Darkness

Further reading

• Interview with Irene Solà and Mara Faye Lethem, the translator of her work, The Rumpus
• Conversation Between Irene Solà and author Eva Baltasar, Granta
• "Irene Solà". lletrA-UOC – Open University of Catalonia.