Lowering Clouds

Gabriele, an actress nearing the end of her career, returns to the city where she spent her adolescence. At sixty-two, with two divorces behind her and film roles growing scarce, she feels the weight of time and the unforgiving gaze of the industry. Her unexpected visit unsettles two childhood friends: Marianne, a retired teacher whose memory is beginning to blur, and Silvia, a woman caught between family obligations, routine, and a marriage worn thin. Through these encounters, Gabriele glimpses the life she might have lived, while her presence awakens long-buried desires and unresolved tensions. Lowering Clouds is a psychological and deeply human novel about aging, identity, friendship, and the fragile hope of second chances. "A slice of real life dissected with a razor-sharp literary scalpel. One of the most promising voices in contemporary Catalan fiction." — L'Ull crític "Intimate, spontaneous, and profoundly human moments. A novel that captures nostalgia and the strength of new beginnings." — Cinzia Rizzotto, Translator "A sensitive portrait of people in their sixties reflecting on their lives and choices." — Vera Ramakers, Translator "A memorable interpersonal mosaic that lingers long after the final page." — Catherine Wray, Translator Núria Añó is a Catalan writer whose work explores the psychology of her characters with a distinctive, introspective voice. Published internationally and translated into fifteen languages, she is known for capturing silence, inner tension, and complex family dynamics. She has received numerous literary awards and has been invited to prestigious writing residencies across Europe and Asia. Her prose, often compared to art-house cinema, blends emotional precision, a contemplative rhythm, and a quiet, lingering tension that remains long after the final page. L'escriptora morta ([The Dead Writer, 2020] Omicron) was published in 2008; Núvols baixos ([Lowering Clouds, 2020] Omicron) in 2009; La mirada del fill (Abadia) in 2012; El salón de los artistas exiliados en California ([The Salon of Exiled Artists in California], 2020) is a biography of screenwriter Salka Viertel. Núria won the 18th Joan Fuster Prize for Fiction Ciutat d'Almenara, fourth place for international writing at the 2018 Shanghai Get-Together, and has been awarded with prestigious international grants: Nuoren Voiman Liitto (Finland, 2016), Shanghai Writing Program (China, 2016), Baltic Centre (Sweden, 2017), IWTCR (Greece, 2017), Krakow UNESCO City of Literature (Poland, 2018), IWTH (Latvia, 2019 and 2023) and IWP (China, 2020). Her writing centers around her characters' psychology, often through the use of anti-heroes. Núria's characters are the focus of her work, and are generally more relevant than the topic itself. With introspective reflections that are feminine rather than sentimental, she finds a unique balance between the marginal worlds of parallels. Her novels explore a wide variety of topics, delving into important social and current themes, such as injustice or lack of communication between individuals. The basic plot of her novels does not tell you everything there is to know. By using this method, Añó seeks to involve the reader so they ask their own questions to discover the deeper meaning of the content.