The town of Xàbia appears in the pages of Aura in Manhattan, the new novel by the Valencian writer Guillermo Colomer, published by Llibres de la Drassana.
At first glance, the title suggests skyscrapers, jazz and endless avenues, but amidst the hustle and bustle of New York, the murmur of the Mediterranean filters through, the town of Xàbia.
The protagonist, Aura, a 19-year-old traveling to the Big Apple for the first time, shares her history with Lluís, a Valencian professor living in Columbia, and his wife Margaret. During their walks through Manhattan, between Central Park and Wall Street, memories of a luminous Xàbia and past events surface, shaping the relationships between the characters.
Colomer —winner of the Premi Lletraferit in 2019 with L'últim dels valencians—thus intertwining the Valencian territory with universal settings once again. In this novel, Xàbia acts as an emotional counterpoint: the past that explains the decisions of the present and the root that beats beneath cosmopolitanism.
The author, in a recent interview, explains that "New York is where everything happens, but Xàbia is where everything begins."
