A Woman Passing By
Una dona que passa
Club Editor
Barcelona
Octubre 2026
224 pages
In Spain, the diary has long been an overwhelmingly male genre. But what happens when a woman is the one reflecting on the texture of her everyday life? Reflection, when pursued in freedom, can be every bit as gripping as a novel, and with this book Marta Marín-Dòmine proves it.
A Woman Walking By is a year in the life of a woman in Barcelona, from September 2023 to September 2024: two summers shaped by climate change; her dismissal as director of El Born; the forging of a friendship; and the suspicion of a serious illness. Alongside these personal events come the news of the massacre perpetrated by Hamas in the kibbutzim, the systematic bombardment of Gaza, and the cascade of allegations exposing misogynistic abuse by prominent figures in the worlds of art and culture.
In the face of a hostile world marked by the return of strongman politics and essentialist rhetoric, Marín-Dòmine argues for a cosmopolitan civic ethos and an embrace of vulnerability. Feminism—as it has evolved from the 1970s to the present day—is the lens through which she sees the world. Running through the book is a central question: what does it mean to feel at home, and how can human beings find a sense of home in our time?
[…] I discovered a song from 1921 by Jeanne Florentine Bourgeois, the famous Mistinguett: “Une femme qui passe.” It is an extraordinarily long song that describes the transformation of a man who has woken up in a bad mood but, the moment he steps out into the street, sees a woman passing by, and it is as though the sun has come out again. Everything smiles at him, the fog lifts, and he begins to follow the woman, while the song’s omniscient voice warns him to be careful because that woman will eventually betray him, as all do.
When can a woman pass by and simply be someone who is passing by?