Núria Bendicho Giró (Barcelona - Catalunya, 1995). I don’t remember the first time I felt I had to write. I must have been eight or nine years old. It wasn’t a mere impulse, but an obligation. I felt I had to be a writer, no matter what it took. My grandfather, who died the year before I was born, left me a large collection of classics of Catalan literature. I dusted them off and devoured them, working my way through writers such as Víctor Català, Aurora Bertrana, Miquel Llor, Juli Vallmitjana. I began to value my own tradition, and felt my heartbeat quicken with every page. Then I turned to Spanish realism, later French naturalism. I stumbled—by chance or luck—on Faulkner, and discovered his disciples. I had found my natural interests: poverty, illness, exploitation, the condition of women, the question of evil. The authors I admired shared similarities that I, too, wished to capture and make mine. I needed to pay homage to those from whom I had learned not only the art of writing, but also, and most importantly, to observe the world around me deliberately, philosophically, with a critical eye. Literature is nothing more than the craft of applying fresh brushstrokes along the path the masters have laid out for you.