Of Beasts and Fowls by Pilar Adón in Portland

As part of her U.S. tour, Spanish writer Pilar Adón presents her latest translated work, “Of Beasts and Fowls”, at Powell’s City of Books in Portland.

Join the author in the presentation of her novel, awarded with the Spanish National Fiction Prize. This work is a story about the things that we do without knowing why, but that have an explanation that perhaps we will someday come to understand.

Of Beasts and Fowls

Summer ends, the season changes, and Coro, an artist frightened off by what her own paintings may represent, gets in her car and drives for hours in the middle of the night until she chances upon Betania, an isolated house existing in a world of its own. It’s an unfamiliar place inhabited exclusively by women who, strangely, all seem to know her.

Like adherents of an ancient cult, the women of Betania all dress the same, carry out strange rites and celebrations, and live alongside goats and innumerable dogs against a landscape dominated by an immense, imposing mountain that seems to block out the sunlight. Theirs is a hierarchical, closed, and restless universe where—as the other women tell her and despite her attempts to escape the area—Coro may finally discover what it means to be part of something.

Pilar Adón

Pilar Adón, born in Madrid in 1971, is a Spanish author, translator, and publisher. She has written four novels, four poetry collections, and three short story collections. Her literary works include the novel De bestias y aves (Galaxia Gutenberg, 2022), which was awarded the Premio Nacional de Narrativa.

Adón has also published short story collections such as La vida sumergida and El mes más cruel. As a translator and publisher, she is associated with Impedimenta. Her contributions to literature have earned her various prizes in Spain. Adón’s work has gained international recognition, with her participation in literary events such as the Hay Festival.