The Family with Sara Mesa
Fri 16 Oct 2026
7:00pm at Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights, 14-15 John St, Bath, BA1 2JL
All tickets include 15% off any books purchased on the night, a glass of wine or soft drink, author talk, Q&A and signing.
Other ways to book:
Email tickets@mrbsemporium.com, call 01225 331155 or pop into the shop at 14-15 John Street, Bath. BA1 2JL.
We can’t wait to welcome internationally celebrated Spanish writer Sara Mesa to Mr B’s for an event celebrating the release of her new novel, The Family.
The latest novel from the author of Four by Four, one of our booksellers Laura GM’s favourite novels, and Un Amor, which has sold over 80,000 copies in Spain, The Family offers a sharp, concise dismantling of the illusion of domestic harmony, in what is Sara’s most autobiographical and intimate work to date.
Translated by Katie Whittemore and published by our friends over at Peirene Press, The Family has been named one of the Best Books of 2022 by El Pais, El Cultural, El Munda, La Vanguardia, ABC, and Esquire, among others, and was the winner of the Premio Cálamo Extraordinario 2022.
Can’t make it to the event? Order a signed & dedicated copy here!
About the book:
‘There are no secrets in this family!’ proclaims Damián, the father, triumphantly. A secular idealist obsessed with morality and order, he is blind to the cracks in his home’s foundations, the oppression that pervades it, and the elaborate fictions his wife and four children devise to survive it. While he quotes Gandhi and expounds on the virtues of education, charity and thrift, the children retreat into humiliated compliance or seek freedom in the most dangerous of places.
Through a mosaic of interlinked tales, spanning decades, acclaimed Spanish author Sara Mesa turns her unflinching gaze to the family as institution: the ideologies that shape it, the silences that undermine it, and the authority you can never quite escape.
“In wonderfully unsettling prose, Sara Mesa traces strange and delicate constellations that glow with psychological insight.” Chloe Aridjis, author of The Shadow of the Object
“Sara Mesa’s writing is mysterious and fascinating: her characters brush against the limits in environments of fierce false calm. Un Amor is one of her best novels – tense and beautiful like a crouching bird.” Mariana Enríquez, author of The Dangers of Smoking in Bed
“When I read Sara Mesa, I’m there in the Wild West, sifting through the sand. There is a restless enjoyment, an inhospitable beauty, in my sieve. And then something miraculous when gold appears before my eyes.” Eva Baltasar, author of Boulder