Gabriela Ybarra
Gabriela Ybarra photographed by her sister Inés Ybarra

Gabriela Ybarra (b. Bilbao, 1983) made a splash on the Iberian literary scene in 2015 with the publication of her debut novel, El comensal, an autofictional account of her mother’s battle with cancer interlaced with her grandfather Javier de Ybarra y Bergé’s kidnap and assassination by ETA in 1977. Rooted in the legacy of the Basque conflict, the novel is a poignant exploration of universal themes such as presence/absence, silence, grief, suffering, intergenerational trauma and (post)memory, its narrative interspersed with actual historical documents such as press articles and photographs. El comensal was awarded the Euskadi Literature Prize (Premio Euskadi de Literatura), the highest accolade in Basque Letters. The 2018 English translation by Natasha Wimmer, entitled The Dinner Guest, was longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize. In 2022, reflecting the extent of its cultural impact, the novel was adapted into a film directed by Ángeles González Sinde. 

Ybarra studied Business Administration and Management at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas and obtained a Masters in Marketing from New York University. She currently resides in Madrid, where she works in social media analysis and marketing. She has written for El País, ABC, El Mundo and Revista Eñe

Compiled by Catherine Barbour (Dublin)
 

Bibliography

El comensal (Barcelona: Cabello de Troya, 2016)

‘Gabriela Ybarra’ in 10 de 30: Nueva narrativa española 2020 (Madrid: Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo, 2020, pp. 36-49)

Film Adaptation

El comensal, dir. Ángeles González Sinde (2016)

Translations into Foreign Languages

English

The Dinner Guest [translation of El comensal by Natasha Wimmer] (London: Harvill Secker, 2018)

Italian

Il Commensale [translation of El comensal by Maria Concetta Marzullo] (Naples: Alessandro Polidoro Editore, 2019)
 

Criticism

Billard, Marion: ‘El comensal de Gabriela Ybarra: le creux mémoriel comme lieu de (re)construction du passé’ (Amnis, 18, 2019) 

Jiménez Torres, David: ‘El espacio de las heridas: Violencia, afectos y contexto en Patria y El comensal’ (Bulletin of Spanish Studies: Hispanic Studies and Researches on Spain, Portugal, and Latin America 96 (7), 2019, pp. 1077-1094)

Ortez, T. Patrick: ‘Review of The Dinner Guest by Gabriela Ybarra, Natasha Wimmer’ (World Literature Today, 94 (1), 2020, pp. 102-103)  
available online at https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7588/worllitetoda.94.1.0102a
 

Interviews/in the Media

Echévarri, Diego: ‘Asimilar a los muertos: entrevista con Gabriela Ybarra ‘ (La Grieta, 9 March 2016)

Lea, Richard: ‘Terror hits home: Gabriela Ybarra on the family stories behind her novel’ (The Guardian, 11 April 2018)

Marqués, Juan: ‘En torno a El comensal de Gabriela Ybarra’ (Nueva Revista, 26 May 2016)

Timmer Harvey, Sarah: ‘Imagining Truths: In Conversation With Gabriela Ybarra’ (Asymptote Journal, 10 June 2019)

‘Meet the Writer: Gabriela Ybarra’ (Instituto Cervantes New Dehli, 24 November 2017) available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omEzHSrCZY0&ab_channel=InstitutoCervantesNuevaDelhi