Joan Gil

Joan Gil was born in Barcelona (Catalonia) many years ago, and is now a resident of the Washington DC area. He was mostly interested in Literature and Humanities but enrolled in the local Medical School for practical reasons. As a medical student he found the time to write his first novel, which he was unable to publish. He spent the first ten years after graduation doing research and teaching at the University of Berne (Switzerland) where he had the fortune of marrying a Austrian lady, now tragically lost, who became the mother of his children. In the USA he resumed the same line of work at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia for seven years and he spent the last 23 years of his professional life as an Attending and Professor of Pathology at the Mount Sinai Hospital and School of Medicine in Manhattan NY. Upon retiring, he finally found the time to devote himself to the fulfillment of his literary interests. He enjoys starting his novels with an introduction experienced many years earlier because of his interest in long-term character development and causation. The social environment and idiosyncrasy of his characters always finds a prominent space in the books. He never writes medical or autobiographic novels. He started his literary career in the USA by publishing "Laia's Takeover" on the awakening of a strong young woman. This was followed by "Drama in the Upper East Side", a social tragedy complicated by a fantasy figure determined to measure human strength by giving a priest three days to prevent a suicide. Gil was always interested in history: his third novel titled "All Hail King Ramir" is the product of years of research, the account of the complicated life and brief reign of Ramir II the Monk, a XII century King of Aragon, a country located in the Pyrenees of the Iberian Peninsula, well before Spain existed, during the eight Centuries-long War of Reconquest between Christians and Muslims. This monarch, chosen against his will, refused to make war against the Muslims. Incompetent and untrained as he was, he found an unexpected and surprising way of abdicating. Gil's final fourth work, "After the Water Level Rose", is a collection of seven short novels ("novellas"), all of them with an unexpected end. The first one reflects future life in the XXII Century after oceanic water has flooded coastal cities, which also must accommodate large numbers of poor immigrants.

Sine 2008 Gil also publishes a nearly weekly blog in the Catalan-language newspaper ELPUNT-AVUI, mostly dealing with life in the USA and historical items.

Personal web: Joangil.pubsitepro.com