Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} A Boy in Barcelona by R.W. Mitchell 20 Must-Read Books Set in Spain by Spanish Authors. It’s always been the case that when I travel, I like to read novels that are region-specific. That’s been true for a long time; but in the last few years, as I became more aware of the lack of translated literature and the need to read more diversely, I made my plan even more particular. Now, when I travel somewhere, I want to read books not only set in the place, but written by someone who lived or was from there, preferably translated from the original language. Photograph of Leah Rachel von Essen in Barcelona, by Oscar Mills, used with permission. So when I went to Mexico City from Chicago, I read Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros; when I went to England, I read Jane Austen. And when I went to Spain, I dug deep into lists of Spanish authors, of books to read before, during, and after my trip that were written by Spanish authors and were set in Spain. I included books written in Catalan and Galician, as they are important national identities of regions that have also pushed for independence. I should note that I attempted to make my list inclusive of authors of color, but struggled to find translated non-white authors writing in Spain. If you have recommendations, please share them with me on Twitter—I would love to hear them! It’s also worth noting that there are many fantastic authors and novels out there that I would have loved to dig into on my trip and on this list, but that are still untranslated, highlighting once again the importance of an international outlook for our reading lists. So here it is: my reading list. Some of these I read in Spain, with a glass of wine in the cobblestone maze of Barcelona’s Barri Gótic, or under the orange blossom trees in Seville. Some of these I read after, during the pandemic, missing the glorious feeling of exploration, living vicariously through the novels. And others, I still have to read, saving them to spread over the next few months. I hope you, too, can dive into these books, whether it be someday in the future for your travels, or today to live through the pages. Death in Spring by Mercè Rodoreda, translated by Martha Tennent. I read Death in Spring on a beach in La Barceloneta, the breeze chilly and the sky a bluish grey. It’s a strange, twisting, lovely novel, written originally in Catalan, that gives a folkloric look into a small town that has rigid, bizarre, and often violent customs. Through the eyes of a young boy growing up, Rodoreda shows us these strange rituals and the attitudes of the people who enact them, and in an allegorical fashion, strikes at the harsh laws and restraint of Franco’s Spain. The Dinner Guest by Gabriela Ybarra, translated by Natasha Wimmer. This is a deeply affecting semi-autobiographical novel. In 1977, Ybarra’s grandfather was kidnapped by Basque separatists, went missing, and then was found murdered. While the story haunted Ybarra’s childhood, many of the details were hushed and kept silent until she decided to dig into their history after her mother’s death, unearthing newspaper articles and discovering as much of the truth as she could. The result is a somber, poetic exploration into grief, family history, and silence in politics. A Heart So White by Javier Marías, translated by Margaret Jull Costa. Marías is one of Spain’s most celebrated novelists. In A Heart So White Juan, a professional translator, finds himself often crafting words, tweaking messages, holding a power over language. When he gets married, he finds himself digging into his father’s history and interiority, and finds complicity and darkness in the shadows of his own story. “My hands are of your color; but I shame / To wear a heart so white.” Marías pulls from this line from Shakespeare’s Macbeth as he puts this novel together. Beautiful and Dark by Rosa Montero, translated by Adrienne Mitchell. Award-winning journalist and novelist Rosa Montero, known for her feminist novels and her work for newspaper El País , combines the real and the fantastic in Beautiful and Dark. It’s a story about orphan Baba, a young girl living with relatives in El Barrio, struggling with the dark adult world that surrounds her and her neighborhood. She is lucky to meet Airelei, who shares myths and tales. The book brings together magical, fairytale horror with a social realist bent. The Winterlings by Cristina Sánchez-Andrade, translated by Samuel Rutter. After years of exile following their grandfather’s murder during the civil war, two sisters return to their cottage in the small, idiosyncratic village of Tierra de Chá in Galicia in the 1950s. Suspicion begins to rise about the sisters when they attempt to stand in for a movie part—why are they back? Meanwhile, other mysteries rage on, such as, why won’t the town speak about their grandfather’s death? Secrets and mysteries haunt the tale told in this novel by contemporary author Cristina Sánchez-Andrade. The Frozen Heart by Almudena Grandes, translated by Frank Wynne. When Alvaro notices an attractive stranger at his father’s funeral, his curiosity is piqued. Who is she? And why does no one seem to know? When his family then receives a large amount of money, Alvaro goes digging, and discovers an old folder of letters from the 1940s—and finds out that the woman is Raquel Fernandez Perea, whose parents fled Spain during the Civil War. This is a spanning epic about a war that shook Spanish society. The Happy City by Elvira Navarro, translated by Rosalind Harvey. I picked this book up in a small used bookstore in Barcelona, its shelves packed with English language books, hidden away on a beautiful street. Navarro has been hailed as one of the rising stars of Spain’s literature scene: in this novel, she tells the story of Chi-Huei, a Chinese son of immigrants, and his friend Sara, a girl intrigued by a homeless man. The book is a coming-of-age tale grounded in frustration, social pressures, and disillusionment, all energized by Navarro’s sharp, complex writing. The Time in Between by María Dueñas, translated by Daniel Hahn. I read this chunky historical fiction novel on my plane ride home from Spain, taking refuge in its pages. It’s a story about a bold woman named Sira who casts out for independence when the man she loves leaves her penniless. With the help of strong female allies, she becomes a haute couture dressmaker in Tetouan in Morocco, and soon becomes entangled in politics. It’s a long novel that breezes by, a huge international bestseller that hasn’t gotten nearly enough attention in the U.S.; it spans a lot of history in its pages, with compelling friendships and complex side characters, and by the end of it, I was feverishly rooting for Sira. The Yellow Rain by Julio Llamazares, translated by Margaret Jull Costa. Only one man remains in Ainielle, a small deserted village high up in the Spanish Pyrenees. That man, old and in solitude, wanders, the “yellow rain” of autumn leaves coming down around him as he looks back at his life and town, as he remembers the people and the life that were once with him. Llamazares is a contemporary author focused on the rural life of Spain, what has been left behind as the obsession and fixation on the cities grows, himself originally from small village in the region of León. Literature® by Guillermo Stitch. This strange sci-fi noir novella features a man named Billy Stringer. Dressed as a clown, and having just messed up a big assignment at work, he’s now realizing that someone is out to kill him. This isn’t particularly surprising to him—he’s an assassin, and he’s also a bookworm in a world where fiction is banned for the sake of efficiency. But he’d prefer to survive, at least long enough to see his girlfriend Jane and explain to her what’s happening. Dystopian and smart, this novella won won gold at the 2019 Independent Publisher Book (IPPY) Awards. The Family of Pascual Duarte by Camilo José Cela, translated by Anthony Kerrigan. This classic is a 1942 novel by a Spanish Nobel laureate. Disturbing and dark, this short novel features a man who has decided that violence is the only way to get what he wants, to exist in the world that is deterministic and unkind. Cela writes of the human capacity for violence, for war, and here he is writing in the form of Spanish realism termed “miserabilism,” which is more or less what it sounds like. The difficult, unlikeable narrator is portrayed against the darkness of his own life. This novel was banned when it first came out, causing an uproar. All is Silence by Manuel Rivas, translated by Jonathan Dunne. Three young friends, Fins, Brinco, and Leda, spend their days exploring the seashore and picking through what they find. When they stumble on a cache of whisky, they think they have it made—until they find out who it belongs to. This novel, written originally in Galician, is a story about silence—about the historical and oppressive weight of silence that hovers over the politics of this town, this region, and of the culture of masculinity that pervades. As Fins, Brinco, and Leda grow up, their relationships shift, and Rivas’s strange prose gives the entire thing an atmospheric feel. The Anatomy of a Moment: Thirty-Five Minutes in History and Imagination by Javier Cercas, Translated by Anne McLean. Cercas is generally best known as a novelist, but this time, he felt he had to turn to nonfiction instead. After the end of Franco’s reign, Spain held a democratic vote for a new prime minister, but at the moment of the Parliament vote, in a filmed session, a band of right-wing soldiers interrupted the vote and ordered everyone to get down. Three men refused, remaining sitting in their seats instead—a moment of rebellion that has taken on the semblance of myth. A bestseller in Spain, this book captures that moment in descriptive writing. Why, Why, Why? By Quin Monzó, translated by Peter Bush. Why, Why, Why? Stories is a collection of cynical, absurd tales by Catalan writer Monzó. His stories are blunt and strange, about mixing up faces and names, about the inability to connect, the strange sadnesses that burden people’s everyday lives. It won points for me for “Married Life,” a cynical story about sex becoming stale after marriage, a subject too common already in literary fiction but this one hurt, showing Monzó’s skill at hitting precisely the point of pain, of disconnect. La Casa de Bernarda Alba by Federico García Lorca, translated by Emily Mann. When her husband dies, mother Bernarda Alba grows controlling and fierce, keeping her five adult daughters locked in her home, insisting that they institute a strict eight-year mourning period, and trying to even control their day-to-day communication within the home. It’s a tense, tragic sort of play, a work of female strength and sexual repression, of a culture of silence and control, as the mother keeps her daughters under lock and key, and as the daughters strive to escape. Set in Andalusia, this tragedy is one of Lorca’s final works. Homeland by Fernando Aramburu, translated by Alfred MacAdam. Patria in its original Spanish, Homeland is a contemporary novel that captures the tense and difficult story of two Basque families in the midst of the violent separatist movement of the ETA. Nonlinear and populated by a multitude of small chapters, Aramburu captures the complex and chaotic lives of these two families, spanning the 1980s to 2011. The author has been critically acclaimed, and the book has run through many editions in Spain, causing a stir. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, translated by Lucia Graves. The fact that this is an obvious inclusion doesn’t make it any less true: Zafón’s novel is a masterwork, a fascinating mystery of a novel that I read walking along the cobblestones of the Gótic, sitting overlooking the city at Parc Güell, drinking an absinthe in Bar Marsella. A gorgeous novel about a maze of forgotten books and a spiraling mystery, a thriller of sorts about a boy named Daniel who falls in love with a book, a book with a dark history of its own. This is the classic Barcelona novel. The Best Thing That Can Happen to a Croissant by Pablo Tusset, translated by Kristina Cordero. Barcelona author Pablo Tusset’s debut novel features Pablo “Baloo” Miralles, an internet blogger and pleasure seeker, rarely awake by day, a black sheep of the family who is brought in when the president of the family business, his older brother, disappears. Reluctantly playing detective, Miralles sets out to try and find his brother, in a novel that is wicked, funny, and quickly became a bestseller in Europe. Solitude by Victor Català, translated by David H. Rosenthal. Caterina Albert is a Catalan author who published under the name of Victor Català. In 1905 she published Solitud, a novel that told the story of a young woman struggling to assert her independence, a feminist text that was fairly revolutionary at the time and that contributed to the Catalan modernist movement as well. Solitude tells the story of Mila, a peasant girl who marries Matias, moving to a remote area up in the mountains where both of them begin to feel themselves pulled into different directions, and to different people. Nada by Carmen Laforet, translated by Edith Grossman. When I first picked up this book in a bookshop in Barcelona, I didn’t expect to fall in love as deeply as I did. Young Andrea comes to stay with her relations in a house on Calle de Aribau, in order to attend university. She finds a cast of characters both intimidating and difficult: from her superstitious aunt Angustias to her uncles Juan and Román to Juan’s wife, the gambling, beautiful Gloria. As Andrea becomes close with friend and classmate Ena, she grows more and more introspective, mature, and determined to succeed. I read this gothic, gorgeously written novel on the train from Barcelona to Seville, swallowing up its descriptions, breathing in Andrea’s resolve. It stuck with me even after I had left Spain, and ended up being my favorite book I read on my travels. Parastrongylus (=Angiostrongylus) cantonensis now endemic in Louisiana wildlife. Parastrongylus (=Angiostrongylus) cantonensis, a lung worm of rats, was first reported in the United States in 1987, with a probable introduction by infected rats from ships docking in New Orleans, Louisiana, during the mid-1980s. Since then, it has been reported in nonhuman primates and a boy from New Orleans, and in a horse from Picayune, Mississippi, a distance of 87 km from New Orleans. Parastrongylus cantonensis infection is herein reported in a lemur (Varencia variegata rubra) from New Iberia, Louisiana, a distance of 222 km from New Orleans, and in a wood rat (Neotomafloridanus) and in 4 opossums (Didelphis virginiana) from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a distance of 124 km from New Orleans. The potential of a great variety of gastropods serving as intermediate hosts in Louisiana may pose a threat to wildlife as well as to domesticated animals in the areas where infected Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) are present. New York Knicks Have Several Free Agency Decisions to Make. The New York Knicks are on the verge of having their season come to a close and when that happens, they’ll have a lot of tough decisions to make. In an effort to maintain a healthy amount of cap space, the Knicks brought in several veterans on 1-year deals, and it paid off in a big way as the team finds themselves back in the playoffs for the first time in years. On the other hand, many of these players will be looking for pay increases as they look to lockdown more lucrative and lengthy deals. The Knicks will either have to open up their checkbook or let several key pieces walk for nothing. Here’s a look at all of the decisions the Knicks have to face. Many Expiring Deals. Getty Images Elfrid Payton of the Knicks drives to the basket while guarded by Tristan Thompson of the Celtics. As pointed out by Marc Berman of the New York Post, the Knicks have a laundry list of expiring players that include Derrick Rose, Elfrid Payton, Reggie Bullock, Nerlens Noel, Taj Gibson and Alec Burks. These are all key reasons the Knicks were as successful as they were this season and while the Knicks could simply resign them if they’d like, it’s not as simple as that. In the case of Rose and Gibson, there’s a lot of familiarity being with coach Tom Thibodeau, so they might not be going anywhere. Considering Gibson’s age, it’s likely the Knicks will have him back if he’d like to stay. It might be trickier with Rose since he’s proven he still has a lot left in the tank and this might be his last chance to secure a big payday. Burks and Bullock will be hot commodities for contenders as there’s always room on a roster for deadeye 3-point shooters. Payton could prove to be the odd man out in this scenario as he’s had a rough playoff and even lost his starting spot. With other players looking to get paid, it’s looking more likely that he could be on the move this offseason. Who is Likeliest to Return? Getty Derrick Rose guarding Russell Westbrook. Gibson would appear to be the easiest prediction to make due to his age and familiarity with the Knicks’ system. Rose would also be a good candidate for the same reasons, but he could be looking for one last payday before retirement and the Knicks will likely want to keep him coming off the bench. If he has aspirations of being a starter, it might have to be somewhere else. Berman notes the Knicks hold Bullock’s bird rights, so they could go over the salary cap to resign him, something he says the team should consider. Since 3-and-D is so valued and Bullock has found himself in the starting lineup often, it seems like an easy decision for the Knicks to make. Noel might be as good as gone even if the Knicks look to keep him around. His $5 million deal expires after this season and it’s looking like he’s due for a big raise. The Knicks do not hold his bird rights as they do for Bullock, so there will be a cap on how much they can offer him if they’d like to retain his services. The youngest players to debut for Barcelona since 2000. For a club so rich in silverware and winning trophies mercilessly, you'd think Barcelona were exclusively spending big money to achieve such riches. They do - and in recent years they've spent aimlessly and had no success to show for it - but when at their best, they balance that cutting edge quality with the highest level of ability from their youth ranks. La Blaugrana have blooded in some of football's greatest players from their academy and continue to do so. 90min lists the 30 youngest players to ever make their debut for the club. 30. Munir El Haddadi (18 years, 11 months, 23 days) Barcelona snapped up the highly-rated Munir from Atletico Madrid's academy amid interest among Europe and it felt like they had a star on their hands. He made his official debut for the first team in August 2014 and scored in a 3-0 win, but never truly kicked on and moved to Sevilla in 2019 after falling into the trap of repeated loan spells. 29. Jorge Cuenca (18 years, 11 months, 14 days) Centre back Jorge Cuenca was handed his debut in the Copa del Rey by Ernesto Valverde in November 2018, but never managed to make a league appearance before leaving in 2020. Barcelona slapped a mammoth 20% future sale fee on his head when they sold him to Villarreal, so are expecting some level of profit from the Spaniard. 28. Carles Alena (18 years, 10 months, 25 days) Midfielder Alena's debut feels some time ago at this point. The midfielder scored on his debut in late 2016 and was nominated for the 2018 Golden Boy award, but spent the second half of the 2020/21 season on loan at Getafe having failed to earn enough minutes under Ronald Koeman. 27. Oriol Romeu (18 years, 10 months, 21 days) That's right. Southampton hard man Oriol Romeu is actually Barcelona alumni. He debuted for the club in the Spanish Supercup in August 2010, but moved to England with Chelsea a year later and has carved out a successful Premier League career since. 26. Oriol Busquets (18 years, 10 months, 9 days) Having been with the club since the age of eight, a first team debut in November 2017 was the dream for Oriol Busquets. He tore his meniscus in early 2018, though, which has stunted his development. A loan to FC Twente and return to Barcelona B has followed since, but there is still plenty of time for Busquets to return to the first team and form the Busquets/Busquets midfield pair with Sergio that football needs. 25. Marc Crosas (18 years, 9 months, 30 days) Midfielder Crosas spent his youth with Barcelona and debuted in 2006 by replacing Andres Iniesta in the Copa del Rey - no pressure, then. He swapped Spain for Scotland in 2008 after signing for Celtic and, despite a poor spell in Russia, did carve out a successful career in Mexico while also turning out for the Catalonia national team. 24. Jeffren (18 years, 9 months, 19 days) Jeffren was born in Venezuela but moved to Tenerife aged one and was on the books with Barcelona soon enough. The forward debuted in the same Copa del Rey clash as Crosas and soon caught the eye of Pep Guardiola in the late 2000s, but never managed to break into his side and left the club in 2011. He did, however, depart with an El Clasico goal to his name from that 5-0 win in 2010. 23. Juan Miranda (18 years, 9 months, 12 days) Having started out with Real Betis, Miranda's talent earned him a move to Barcelona in 2014, before making his first team debut for La Blaugrana four years later. He's spent the 2020/21 season on loan back at Betis, but has impressed and earned regular La Liga minutes with the side. With Jordi Alba ageing, he's putting himself in a good position to stake his claim at left back in future. 22. Sergi Roberto (18 years, 9 months, 3 days) Having impressed with Barcelona B as a 17-year-old, Roberto earned a first team debut in the cup in 2010 under Pep Guardiola. Six La Liga titles and two Champions Leagues later, the Spaniard serves as the utility man among the squad these days - even if some fans aren't all that keen on him anymore. 21. Rafinha (18 years, 8 months, 28 days) Brazilian midfielder Rafinha left his country for Barcelona aged 13 and made his Barcelona debut in November 2011 after impressing in the reserves. Injuries and inconsistencies blighted his Barça career which remained trophy-laden, before he officially left the club in 2020 when he signed for Paris Saint-Germain. A long time on the books. 20. Jean Marie Dongou (18 years, 7 months, 16 days) The Samuel Eto'o academy proved to be Cameroonian forward Dongou's gateway to Barcelona in 2008. He debuted for the first team in December 2013, but never really nailed down a spot in the squad and trickled down the lower tiers of Spain before playing in Finland in 2020. 19. Alen Halilovic (18 years, 6 months, 28 days) When Halilovic emerged on the scene and signed for Barcelona in 2014, it looked like yet another cheat code of a young starlet. It never really worked out, though, and moves to Germany and Italy also failed to bring out the best in the Croatian. He's since ended up in the English second tier; from Barcelona to Birmingham. 18. Ramon Maso (18 years, 6 months, 23 days) Anunciem la 3a incorporació per la temporada 19-20. En Ramon, procedent de La Jonquera, aportarà polivalència defensiva i experiència ? Midfielder Ramon Maso made his debut for the first team in 2006, but has since spent a career playing in Spanish football's largely ignored lower tiers. Barcelona won La Liga in the season he debuted, though, so he can always claim that he's won the Spanish top flight. 17. Gai Assulin (18 years, 6 months, 19 days) Assulin was tipped to follow Pep Guardiola from Barcelona B upto the first team when he was appointed manager in 2008. He eventually did, and made his debut for the club in October 2009, but left in 2010 having not been assured first team football. A move to Manchester City followed, but the winger has since played just about everywhere from Israel to Romania. 16. Andres Iniesta (18 years, 5 months, 18 days) Moving away from his family to join La Masia , Andres Iniesta quickly made an impact at Barcelona in their youth ranks. After being blooded in for the first time in 2002, Iniesta was a regular by 2005, and one of the greatest players in the world shortly after. The most decorated Spanish footballer ever, Barça didn't do badly with Iniesta. 15. Sergi Gomez (18 years, 4 months, 17 days) Despite having a world beater-sounding name and debuting under Guardiola in 2010, Sergi Gomez never really made a dent in Barcelona's first team set-up. A move away in 2014 proved smart, with Gomez enjoying a solid four years with Celta Vigo before moving on again. 14. Giovani dos Santos (18 years, 3 months, 22 days) What do Giovani dos Santos and Kurt Angle have in common? They both have an Olympic gold medal to their name. Seriously. Dos Santos debuted with Barcelona in 2007 and was raved about from there on in, but signed for Tottenham in 2008 in search of first team football. It never worked out at the top level, but the Mexican has since enjoyed success in North America and his native Mexico. 13. Oier Olazabal (18 years, 3 months, 19 days) Goalkeepers have it difficult; it's incredibly hard to find a way into a side, because you can't be flexible with positions. Olazabal was handed his Barcelona debut with La Liga wrapped up in May 2008, but has since spent his career fighting to be a number one across Spain. 12. Pepe Reina (18 years, 3 months, 1 day) Injuries to first and second choice options saw Barça call on an 18-year-old Pepe Reina in 2000. He never truly found his feet with the club, but blossomed into a fine keeper later on with Liverpool and has served as a reliable pair of hands across Europe - if you can ignore a weird spell with Aston Villa. 11. Thiago Alcantara (18 years, 1 month, 6 days) Pep Guardiola handed a debut to Thiago with La Liga already won in in May 2009, and it became clear that Barcelona had a star on their hands. Thiago continued to ease his way into the first team, but left for Bayern Munich in 2013 when Guardiola signed him for the German side. He's not done that badly since. 10. Ilaix Moriba (18 years, 2 days) Guinean-born Spaniard Ilaix Moriba was almost snatched away from Barcelona by interested European heavyweights in January 2019, but he eventually agreed to a new contract. Moriba has since been used in the first team under Ronald Koeman and been a breakout star. He debuted in the Copa del Rey in January 2021, and registered an assist on his league debut some weeks later. 9. Pedri (17 years, 10 months, 2 days) The standout star in the Koeman era thus far, Pedri has been a delight in a season of uncertainty for Barça fans. Pedri signed for the club from Las Palmas in 2019 but only made his first team debut in September 2020. He has excelled when given space to roam from a midfield position and looks set for a bright career. 8. Adama Traore (17 years, 9 months, 29 days) It's somewhat hard to believe a player as infuriating as Adama Traore came through the ranks at Barcelona. He made his debut in 2013, but left for England in 2015. His pace and power is second to none, but he cannot get his numbers up in front of goal for the life of him. 7. Gerard Deulofeu (17 years, 7 months, 16 days) He's had a strange career, has Gerard Deulofeu. He emerged as one of football's finest prospects in 2011/12, impressed on loan at Everton and was expected to enter Barcelona's first team in 2014 before being loaned again. He signed for Everton, then returned to Barcelona, but then left again after half a season back at Camp Nou. 6. Oriol Riera (17 years, 5 months, 14 days) A hat-trick of Oriols, Riera's career highlight wasn't actually his 13 minute debut in 2003. It was actually a half season spell with Wigan in June 2014, because who wouldn't consider a spell with the Latics their career highlight? 5. Nano (17 years, 3 months, 26 days) Beginning as a defender, Nano looked exciting having played with the reserves at just 16. He debuted in 1999, but then faded out of the limelight and made a career out of the Spanish second tier. 4. Lionel Messi (17 years, 3 months, 22 days) A little Argentinian boy caught the eye of Barcelona when impressing for Newell's Old Boys as a youth and relocated to Europe aged 13 to sign for the club. After ripping through Barcelona's youth and reserve groups, Lionel Messi debuted against Espanyol in October 2004 at the request of the club's senior players. Six Ballon d'Or awards and 35 club trophies later, that Argentine hasn't done so bad. 3. Marc Muniesa (17 years, 1 month, 26 days) Spanish defender Muniesa was developing rapidly in Barcelona's academy and his progress was prompting interest from within Europe within his teenage years. La Blaugrana handed him his debut for the first team with the league wrapped up in May 2009. Injuries and inconsistencies meant it wasn't destined to be at Barcelona, thus the obvious next step in 2013 was a move to Stoke City. 2. Bojan Krkic (17 years, 19 days) When Bojan broke Messi's record to become Barcelona's youngest debutant in September 2007, the hype surrounding him was immense. A record ten goals in his debut season added to the hype and he was seriously considered 'the next Messi'. It never truly took off beyond that, though, and after leaving Barcelona for a second time in 2014 to sign for Stoke, it was the end for him as a potential world beater. 1. Ansu Fati (16 years, 9 months, 25 days) It's taken Barcelona 12 years to find the right person to become their youngest debutant since the Bojan debacle, but it happened in 2019 with Ansu Fati. There is a belief that Fati is a genuinely special talent. A bright start to the 2020/21 season was derailed by a nasty meniscus tear, but there is still plenty of time for the teenage Spaniard to turn heads once again.