Sant Carles de la Ràpita, 1968. Writer and editor

[In La ciutat invisible -The Invisible City] Rosales has succeeded in drip-feeding the information, in generating anticipation and not disappointing the avid reader, who is required to sign up to the no-questions-asked fiction agreement from the outset. They must play the game set out by the author, who, unsurprisingly, was selected as the Sant Jordi prizewinner in 2004.

It has been some time since we have been presented with a book such as this; one that knows how to marry the love of art, beauty and knowledge with the mastery of developing a plot and with good prose. Emili Rosales does not hold back whenever he is interviewed in the media, giving clues to the reasons behind his success: he has opted for a voice of differentiation. At a time when identification is sought across all cultures and in the midst of attempts, by a certain faction, at universal intelligentsia (that of the “citizens of the world” – you know who they are), Rosales goes back to origins, to differences. The author says that he forms part of a generation that have either given up on their dreams, or, despite chasing them, have had to derail them. The author says as much in interviews and his narrator echoes the same sentiment in this story.

[...] In the end, however, the journey travelled by the two protagonists will connect them through their shared torment, that of finding their place in the world, of identity. The landscape, in this sense, acts to create identity rather than as a simple picture postcard. It serves as an important witness to the time. [...] The novel of cops and robbers, the enduring love story and the story of great human passions (anger, ambition, friendship, etc.), everything has a place in this splendid volume by Emili Rosales that takes stock of what each of us is willing to give, and depends on the architectural style of our individual, mythical Invisible City.

Maite Insa. “Pels vells camins”, Caràcters, 22 (2005, October).