Marta Barrio is a writer and editor from Madrid who won the critics' and publishers' recognition with her first two novels: her psychological thriller Los gatos salvajes de Kerguelen (2020)—a finalist for the Silverio Cañada Memorial Prize awarded by the crime novel festival hosted in Gijon, Spain, each year—and Leña menuda (2021), which earned her the XVII Tusquets Editores de Novela and the I Almudena Grandes prize. Her third novel, No volverán tus ojos a mirarme (2024)—an excerpt of which is presented in this new issue of the Translators' Corner as You Will Never Set Eyes On Me Again—bears the title of a Mexican ranchera sung by Pedro Infante in the 1940s and alludes to the drama of Barrio's grandparents’ courtship. Glimpses of her family’s history are revealed through her (actual) grandparents’ letters and postcards, which are reproduced in the text, and through the young narrator’s conversations with her Aunt Mercedes. Barrio is adept at changing voices to reflect their respective eras as she describes social relations in postwar Spain. [Adapted from the introduction written by the translator, Lynn M. Shirey].
