The Wonders

'A mesmerizing read. Medel's prose is hypnotic, it's hard to believe this is her first novel. I was completely engrossed in this story, in the shadow each generation casts on the one that comes after it, in the tension between caring for oneself and caring for others' - Avni Doshi, author of the 2020 Booker Prize-Shortlisted Burnt Sugar 'Completely unsentimental and with a harshness that hides the most radiant and painful of scars, Elena Medel's The Wonders brings to life several generations of working women: it's a serene and impious novel that puts class, feminism, and the eternal complexity of family ties at the fore' - Mariana Enriquez, author of the International Booker Prize-shortlisted The Dangers of Smoking in Bed 'Narration and style go hand in hand in a literary wonder that is absolutely personal yet reminds you of the audacity of Virginia Woolf... one of Spain's best poets has become one of its most important novelists' - El Pais 'Without falling into cliches, with a style that exudes lyricism, Medel narrates what recent Spanish history has meant for women... a narrative wonder' - ABC Cultural 'Very rarely do natural talents, linguistic discipline, and emotional rawness coincide. That is the case of Elena Medel, one of the great young poets of our language, whose first novel unfolds a history of crude intimacies, subtle roughness and luminous sadness, who works from class conscience with moral force, stylistic precision and narrative honesty' - Andres Neuman, author of 'Traveller of the Century'

Elena Medel was born in Crdoba in 1985 and lives in Madrid. She is the author of three poetry collections and two works of non-fiction. At 19 she founded the poetry publishing house La Bella Varsovia, one of the most prestigious in the Spanish-speaking world. She is the recipient of the XXVI Loewe Prize for Young Poets, the Princess of Girona Foundation Arts and Literature Award 2016 for the whole of her work and the Francisco Umbral Prize for the Best Book Of The Year 2020. The Wonders is her first novel.