2025 - Elena Medel
Elena Medel (b. 1985) is a Spanish poet, novelist and essayist based in Madrid.
She made her debut at the age of sixteen with the poetry book Mi primer bikini (2002, My First Bikini, transl. Lizzie Davis, 2015) and has since published a dozen books in several genres. The most recent is the novel Las maravillas (2020), winner of the Francisco Umbral Book of the Year Award and longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award 2023 (The Wonders, transl. Lizzie Davis, 2022). She has received the XXVI Loewe Prize for Young Poets and the Leonardo 2021 grant from the BBVA Foundation.
During her 2025 residency at Passa Porta, the International House of Literature in Brussels, Medel will be working on her project Pilar Sanz Sanz, a reflection on female genealogy and at the same time a book about the limits and opportunities of poetry. When you say that you write poetry, do you mean that you are going to write a poem? Could you write poetry while you were writing a novel or a play? Is poetry limited to one label or does it have more to do with attitude, with self-gaze, how can we bend the genre and explore it fully?
This residency on the occasion of Europalia Spain is supported by Flanders Literature and the Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) through the Programme for the Internationalisation of Spanish Culture (PICE).