Euphoria Days by Pilar Fraile
What makes a happy life? In a slightly off-kilter Madrid of the near future, María, a data analyst, has devoted her career to answering that timeless question with computer programs and algorithms—until a recurring nightmare about worms throws her life into disarray. Others have sought happiness elsewhere: Blasco has turned to internet porn; his wife, Diana, to motherhood; Angélica to what she thinks might be love; and the hapless Carlos to substances and a spiritual guide who may or may not be a hack. But in a world increasingly governed by data, are anyone’s decisions really their own? Renowned Spanish writer Pilar Fraile’s first novel to be translated into English, EUPHORIA DAYS traces the intersecting paths of five workers edging toward middle age and grasping at the cheap thrills of optimization. A comedy of errors that shows what happens when we trade autonomy for the false promises of a data-driven existence, from one of the sharpest writers working in the Spanish language today.
What makes a happy life? In a slightly off-kilter Madrid of the near future, María, a data analyst, has devoted her career to answering that timeless question with computer programs and algorithms—until a recurring nightmare about worms throws her life into disarray. Others have sought happiness elsewhere: Blasco has turned to internet porn; his wife, Diana, to motherhood; Angélica to what she thinks might be love; and the hapless Carlos to substances and a spiritual guide who may or may not be a hack. But in a world increasingly governed by data, are anyone’s decisions really their own? Renowned Spanish writer Pilar Fraile’s first novel to be translated into English, EUPHORIA DAYS traces the intersecting paths of five workers edging toward middle age and grasping at the cheap thrills of optimization. A comedy of errors that shows what happens when we trade autonomy for the false promises of a data-driven existence, from one of the sharpest writers working in the Spanish language today.
What makes a happy life? In a slightly off-kilter Madrid of the near future, María, a data analyst, has devoted her career to answering that timeless question with computer programs and algorithms—until a recurring nightmare about worms throws her life into disarray. Others have sought happiness elsewhere: Blasco has turned to internet porn; his wife, Diana, to motherhood; Angélica to what she thinks might be love; and the hapless Carlos to substances and a spiritual guide who may or may not be a hack. But in a world increasingly governed by data, are anyone’s decisions really their own? Renowned Spanish writer Pilar Fraile’s first novel to be translated into English, EUPHORIA DAYS traces the intersecting paths of five workers edging toward middle age and grasping at the cheap thrills of optimization. A comedy of errors that shows what happens when we trade autonomy for the false promises of a data-driven existence, from one of the sharpest writers working in the Spanish language today.
Pilar Fraile teaches philosophy at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and is a doctor in comparative literature. Her publications include the novel Las ventajas de la vida en el campo (Caballo de Troya-Penguin Random House, 2018) and the short story collection Los nuevos pobladores (Ediciones Traspiés, 2014). Her work has been translated into Norwegian, Portuguese and English, and excerpts have appeared in The Paris Review, Conjunctions, and other venues.
Lizzie Davis is a translator and an editor at Transit Books. Her recent projects include works by Juan Cárdenas, Daniela Tarazona, Elena Medel, and Begoña Gómez Urzaiz. Her translation of Cárdenas's The Devil of the Provinces was longlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature in 2023.
"Pilar Fraile has written a magnificent dystopia in which the calculus of artificial happiness has colonized even the erotic dimension of our bodies. Will we be able to escape, will we find a way to flee this new tyranny?" —Juan Cárdenas, author of The Devil of the Provinces