I have now read twenty Catalan novels in a row, by twenty different writers. I cannot say that these novels were typical of the Catalan novel but nevertheless, I shall try and draw a few conclusions from my reading. 1) Catalans are still somewhat obsessed with the Spanish Civil War and Franco. This is not … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jaume Cabré‘s Jo confesso (Confessions). This is the final book in my 2018 Catalan marathon. It is also the longest (around 1000 pages) and probably the best. It tells the story of a father and son, Felix and Adrià Ardèval, both obsessed with collecting rare manuscripts and other … Read more
This weekend we eventually got round to visiting St Ives to see Virginia Woolf An Exhibition Inspired by Her Writings at the Tate. Before discussing the exhibition, a few words about Virginia Woolf and St Ives. The Stephen family (Virginia Woolf’s parents, her brother and sister and herself) spent their summer holidays there, in Talland … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Mercè Rodoreda‘s La mort i la primavera (Death in Spring). Though Rodoreda wrote this book at around the same time as she wrote La plaça del Diamant (UK: The Pigeon Girl; US: The Time of the Doves), it was not published till after her death. It is now … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Najat El Hachmi‘s L’últim patriarca (The Last Patriarch). Najat El Hachmi may not seem a Catalan name and it is not. El Hachmi was born in Morocco but her family moved to Catalonia when she was eight and Catalan was the language she learned to read and write … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Lluïsa Forrellad‘s Siempre en capilla [Always In The Chapel]. Forrellad wrote this in Spanish in 1953 (for which she won the Nadal Prize) and then did not write another novel for fifty-three years, her three later novels all appearing in Catalan. It tells the stories of three English … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jordi Puntí‘s Maletes perdudes (Lost Luggage). It tells the story of four half-brothers, each from a different country, who were unaware of each other’s existence and who come together in Barcelona to learn more about their lost father and one another. We follow the story of their father, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Maria de la Pau Janer‘s Pasiones romanas [Roman Passions]. This tells the story of six women from Palma, Majorca, who all have men problems, all losing at least one man, either by death or because he left her (usually for another woman). They also all end up or … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Joan Perucho‘s Les històries naturals (Natural History). This is a spoof of the vampire story, clearly influenced by Hollywood/Hammer Horror, set in the First Carlist War (1830s). We follow the story of Antoni de Montpalau, a learned aristocrat, who takes the liberal side in the Carlist wars. He … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Agustí Bartra‘s Crist de 200.000 braços [Christ of 200,000 Arms]. This novel is set entirely in the Argelès-sur-Mer concentration camp in southern France, which housed 100,000 prisoners (hence the title) at the end of and after the Spanish Civil War, who had fled Francoist Spain. Bartra was a … Read more