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			The author in the Who's Who of Catalan Literature
			Biobibliography in the Catalan Hyperencyclopedia
			Works in the Biblioteca de Catalunya
			The author in The European Library
			The author in the Congress Library (U.S.)
			The author in the COPAC Catalogue (U.K.)
		Carme Riera on the Lletra website in Catalan Including more resources and reading suggestions.
		Lletra d'Or Prize Lletra page devoted to the Lletra d'Or Prize, which the author won for Dins l'últim blau (In the Last Blue).
		Eroticism and literature The page on Catalan erotic prose includes information on Epitelis tendríssims (Tender Epitheliums) by Carme Riera.
		Carme Riera in the City of Barcelona Literary Corpus Biography, links and comments on her work.
		Website of the AELC Biography, information and works.
		Carme Riera in EPdLP Brief biographical note in El Poder de la Palabra, with an extract from Temps d'una espera (Time Waiting).
		WORK
		Carme Riera Two prose fragments in Catalan, English and German.
		COMMENTS
		On La meitat de l'ànima (Half the Soul) Interview in eitb.com (Euskal Irrati Telebista). In audio.
		Talking to Carme Riera Interview by Nuri Verdú for Fusión (April 1999).
		"La ficció epistolar de Carme Riera" Francesco Ardolino, from the University of Barcelona, discusses the first compilation of short stories by the writer, in the Journal of Catalan Studies.
		Language, Culture and the Self in Carme Riera Eamonn Rodgers writes about the writer, in the Journal of Catalan Studies.
		A Matter of Self-Esteem and Other Stories Review of the novel in World Literature Today by Peter Cocozzella (Summer-Autumn 2002).
		Carme Riera in Looksmart database Selection of articles of the author.
		MISCELLANEOUS
	Carme Riera in HighBeam Research database HighBeam Library Results of Carme Riera's search.

Who I am and why I write

There is an image which, with obsessive clarity, always superimposes itself on the reasons that motivate me to write, the image of a girl (a nena, or little girl, as they say in Barcelona Catalan) with plaits and sad eyes, looking at the distant sea from the window of a big, empty house in the old quarter of Palma de Mallorca. The image of this little girl, who fled terrified from mirrors because she was not beautiful like her mother, but ugly like her father, once again filled my eyes: she does not play, she watches her brothers and sisters playing in the garden of the house from the balcony of her grandmother’s room, the distinguished grandmother, whom she listened to almost all day long as she recounted the old stories of the family’s past, rancid and shattered. Love stories with uncontrollable excesses and passions, kidnappings even, stories that unlock the little girl’s fantasy and encourage her to dream up similar tales. The sad little girl who rejects mirrors because she’s afraid of seeing herself reflected with the moustache worn by her father, started writing variations of the stories that her grandmother had told her when she was eight or nine and, in order to avoid direct confrontation with the man in black who every week carried out interrogations from behind the tiny grilles of the odious confessional, she even tried to make her confessions in writing. Only this way, by making her presence vanish, does she feel able to conquer her infinite shyness and, even, to dilute the possible blame amid the lines of her writing. Let’s just say that the blank sheet of paper was like a mirror for her, the mirror from which she fled, because in the blank sheet of paper she felt flattered and even indulged.

I cannot deny that I feel a great tenderness, much more than when we were that way, for the girl that I once was, whose experiences go part of the way to explaining the reasons that lead me to write. I now know why I began writing, and that it was because of my grandmother, first of all, spurred on by her ability to tell stories, and second, because writing helped me to banish my ghosts and, above all, to understand the world, to get to know the reality that surrounded me and to clarify it. Subsequently, other reasons have been added to these fundamental ones; I write, undoubtedly, because I cannot help it, I cannot take away the need to weave tales, to imagine alternatives to reality, to the environment, to everything I have within my grasp.