The Nine Books is a work brimming with beauty in both its form and content. It comprises nine interwoven stories linked by common elements that, like the scales of a fish, impart lesson after lesson about how we see and face life [...]. It is a simple read that, at the same time, contains complex and intricate concepts of wisdom and philosophical reflections. —Victor Morata (La Jungla de las Letras, January 2026)
If [the stories in 'The Nine Books'] bring to mind anything, it's the didactic stories that Tolstoy wrote with the intention of teaching through simple words a mystical experience, the revelation of the divinity hidden within each person: one of Haru's successes is to achieve the satisfactory conjugation between means and ends, that the tone and argumentation form an organic whole and that the moral tendency is not perceived as an external plaster. —Ponç Puigdevall (El País, January 2026)
Starting from a main character, Company weaves together several stories from the perspective of Haru, the author: “I miss the sacredness of literature, the magic, and this gaze returns to the earliest literary traditions, because that’s why I fell in love with literature in the first place. It’s not a story told from beginning to end, but rather a place to live in, a real form of companionship.” There is sacredness, yes, but a human one: “It doesn’t aim to be a book of lessons. I’ve been saying for years that Haru is all of us, and this book belongs to everyone, because it’s written from human personal experiences intertwined with literary knowledge. That’s why it can evoke real emotions and also have a mythical dimension.” —Francesc Bombí-Vilaseca (La Vanguardia, November 2025)
[The Nine Books] is about a centenarian woman, very wise, who writes a volume fascinated by telling stories, enthusiastic about how they construct our identities, our visions, magic and fantasies. A book convinced of the transformation that occurs in literature, which drinks from traditional sources, from our oldest texts, from the first, from the ethical, the sapiential, the poetic, the oracular. —Joan Llobera (Núvol, November 2025)
This book is a work that calls for reflection and stoicism. Within its pages, we find teachings ranging from the smallest domestic details to the destiny or purpose of each individual on earth. —Raquel Jiménez (Zenda, January 2026)
The Nine Books is an ode to the slow life, and to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary. A high-concept novel made of interconnected stories and built on a unique and timeless universe.
With her trademark lyrical style, Haru celebrates ancient values—such as sensitivity, respect, dedication, and generosity—by weaving together intimate, domestic stories. Each narrative, though seemingly small and personal, reflects timeless ideals that have shaped society for centuries and, as these stories intertwine, they reveal how these values endure and continue to resonate in our daily lives. In this universe, the gratitude of a village causes a freshwater lake to emerge from the dry earth, where a chess teacher feels at peace when her disciple defeats her in a game, and where twenty-five kaolin clay urns allow a father to mourn the death of his son.
Haru’s prose carries the quiet wisdom and strength of a mantra or a ritual, which makes The Nine Books a novel brimming with life-changing wisdom. Each page is imbued with spirituality, philosophy, and hedonism that Haru blends to celebrate ancient practices such as pottery and chess, and the simplest pleasures, such as walking barefoot, smelling a bouquet of chrysanthemums, or praising a disciple’s success.
Eligible for the Institut Ramon Llull translation grants