My Brother Pol
Pol is twenty-nine years old and has Down syndrome. He’s like a little kid, but with a huge body. Mum complains about it a lot. She says everyone always says that people with Down syndrome are so sweet, but that she’s ended up with the exception—and then she sighs. And it’s not that Pol isn’t sweet. It’s just that he can also be inappropriate, have tantrums, and be stubborn. And he’s very, very hard to deal with. Because everyone, no matter how intelligent they are, has good sides and bad ones.
My Brother Pol immerses readers in an emotionally charged landscape shaped by contradiction and tension. Love and rejection, friendship, trust and betrayal, fear, self-esteem, and the desire to live freely beyond social conventions intertwine with striking intensity.
At the novel’s core is Pol, the son of a military father, whose everyday life unfolds within a complex family dynamic and a teen sister who assumes a maternal role despite the presence of their mother. Through this intimate domestic setting, the novel offers a sensitive and incisive examination of care, dependence, and personal autonomy, engaging with the social imaginaries surrounding cognitive disability at the time of its publication.
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Original Language
CATALAN | Bromera
Translation Rights
SPANISH | Algar
Prizes
19th Ciutat d’Alzira Novel Prize
