Journalist and Writer

© Gemma Ruiz
© Gemma Ruiz

Albert Forns (Granollers, 1982) is a journalist and a Catalan writer. He works for the magazine Time Out Barcelona and the newspapers ARA and La Vanguardia. As a writer he has published the novel Jambalaia (Anagrama, 2016), winner of the Anagrama Prize; Albert Serra (la novel·la, no el cineasta) (Empúries, 2013), winner of the Documenta Prize; and the collections of poetry Ultracolors (LaBreu Edicions, 2013). He has participated in numerous literary festivals, such as Barcelona Poetry Week, Kosmopolis and the Primera Persona Festival.

When he was younger he was the driving force behind numerous cultural initiatives on the Internet, which won many awards but which nobody read, like the online magazine of literary criticism Llibrofags (UPF Prize and finalist for the Lletra award from the UOC) and the extinct Projecte Embut (Netreporter Prize awarded by the Barcelona Council), a mixed bag of artistic and literary creation and essays. He regularly writes on theater, literature and visual arts for his blog as well as for Time Out magazine and the digital magazine Núvol.com. As a journalist he has chronicled festivals of film, theater and visual art (the Venice Biennal, Documenta in Kassel).

List of Works

portada-jamba1

Novel
Jambalaia
Anagrama Prize
304 pages
Anagrama, Catalan version: March 2016
Upcoming Spanish translation: June 2016

Synopsis: Jambalaia is a travel book about a small fishing village recycled into a paradise for hipsters and surfers from New York. The diary of a young writer who describes his oddities while trying to fend off a plague of insects. A dictionary of synonyms and a treatise on masturbation. The story of the life together of a group of writers of diverse origins living on an isolated farm. An essay on gentrification, neuromarketing, obesity and the effects of urban dispersion on the mental and physical health of the American population. A reconstruction of how Max Frisch wrote his novel Montauk. A collection of postcards that tell us of dogs that bark, but don’t bite, and parrots who look like they have swallowed all the emojis that Whatsapp has to offer. An investigation into the uses and customs (and the percentages and vices!) of literary people. An essay about the question of pornography in the internet age. A gallery of portraits of all kinds of entrepreneurs. A succulent dialogue between a playwriter and his young disciples. A celebration of object-architecture and a catalogue of documentary photos. And also a love story. Or various love stories. Written with a dose of wit and an agile and bright prose, Albert Forns, one of the most outstanding authors of his generation, takes another step in his journey through the mechanisms of biographical fiction, offering us what seems like a comedic insight about the writing of a book. A making of which is, in reality, a fine novel about ‘second novel syndrome’.

portada-serra

Novel
Albert Serra (the novel, not the filmmaker)
Documenta Prize
334 pages
Empúries, Catalan version: 2013

Synopsis: The protagonist, Albert Forns, decides one fine day on the beach that he wants to become the filmmaker Albert Serra, the author of Honor of the Knights, which they adored at Cannes. From that day on, he starts studying the character, watching interviews with him and memorizing his provocative, controversial replies. As the novel progresses, we discover that Albert Serra was influenced by Salvador Dalí, who like him became a provocateur every time he saw a camera, and also by others such as Andy Warhol. Albert Forns also starts to buy clothes like Albert Serra wore, grows out his moustache to aid the transformation, and goes out in public imitating his voice, etc. Halfway through the metamorphosis, Forns has the opportunity to work as a technician on a real documentary about Albert Serra, and from that point on reality and fiction blur, and the research about this “transforming into someone else” takes on a new dimension. The novel mixes fiction with journalistic chronicles from Albert Serra’s real filming, both in France and in the Documenta Fair in Kassel, and also the diaries and essays of some figures from contemporary art, such as Warhol, Basquiat, Dalí and Miquel Barceló.

ultracolors-petita

Poetry
Ultracolors
106 pages
LaBreu Edicions, 2013

The poems in Ultracolors were written as I studied contemporary artists from the 1970s on (Richard Serra, Bruce Nauman, Nan Goldin, Miranda July) and my daily experiences, of love and heartbreak mixed with the work of these artists, their syntax and their concerns. Each poem takes the name of an artist and, directly or indirectly, dialogues from their work. There are painters (Cy Twombly, Jean Michel Basquiat), filmmakers (Tsai Ming-Liang, Hou Hsiao-Hisen) and choreographers (Pina Bausch, Merce Cunningham).