Rigoberta Bandini portrays the crisis of the thirties in her first novel, Vértigo

Vértigo is an autofiction in which the multidisciplinary Catalan artist describes in an intimate way that vital moment after which every person decides their own path. A crisis that gave her the impetus to start composing the songs with which Rigoberta Bandini has conquered the Spanish music scene.

This is Rigoberta Bandini‘s first novel which, to a certain extent, served as a vital catharsis for everything that has followed. Before becoming the popular singer she is today, Paula Ribó experienced the feeling of a lack of balance and control over ourselves in this fast-paced world where it is difficult to find our place. The crisis of the 30s, a time of doubts and reflections on what path we want to take in our lives, is what is reflected in the literary autofiction of the Barcelona native.

Rigoberta Bandini presents an honest and fresh account of the leap into the void that the transition to maturity and change entails. “In Vertigo I wove together the emotions that invaded me and I understood them thread by thread, and I realise that it is always the same threads that hurt me, that satisfy me or unnerve me“, says the author in the new epilogue that has been added. “My great dramas are simplified to three primary colours that combine in different ways, and from that Vertigo came this book, and it was in that crisis that I began to compose the songs that have changed my life”, explains Paula Ribó.

Vértigo situates us in a holiday in Stockholm, in a process of recovery from a love break-up of the main character, Ribó’s alter-ego. The new prologue is responsible for presenting the narrative game with which to compose the emotional map through which the main character is passing. In this way, we find everything from letters to reflections, as well as notes in different colours and other texts that open up the author’s feelings. The book is a short but intense story that grabs you from the very first page.

The multidisciplinary artist Rigoberta Bandini is the singer of the moment. The success of ‘Ay Mama!’, with which she came very close to representing Spain in Eurovisión 2022 at the last Benidorm Fest, has deeply influenced the public. Vértigo is a novel that, seen in perspective, functions as a catalyst for the Rigoberta Bandini phenomenon that has blossomed into what she is today. As the author herself says: “Rigoberta is already a part of Paula. Rigoberta has always been in me. Rigoberta is a little bit of all of us”.