MERCÈ RODOREDA I GURGUÍ

Mercè Rodoreda i Gurguí was born on 10th of October of 1908 and she died on 13th of April of 1983.

She was one of  the most important Catalan post-war novelist for the density and lyricism of her work. She is the author of the most acclaimed ever Catalan novel, La plaça del Diamant (The Time of the Doves) (1962), which may be read in more than twenty languages.

She began her career writing stories for reviews, as a refuge from her unhappy marriage, and these were followed by four novels, which she subsequently refused to recognise apart from Aloma (1938) for which she received the Crexells prize. In the early days of the Spanish civil war, she worked in the Propaganda Commissariat of the Generalitat (Autonomous Government) of Catalonia, and in the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes (Institute of Catalan Letters). She went into exile, living in different parts of France, and then, in Geneva, she broke her twenty years' silence with Vint-i-dos contes (1958, Twenty-two Stories) for which she obtained the Víctor Català prize. With the novel El carrer de les Camèlies (1966, Camellia Street) she won the Sant Jordi, the Critics' and the Ramon Llull prizes. In the mid-1960s, she returned to Catalonia, to live in the village of Romanyà de la Selva, where she completed her novel Mirall trencat (1974, Broken Mirror), and also published amongst other works, Viatges i flors (Travels and Flowers) and Quanta, quanta guerra (So Much War) in 1980, the year she was conceded the Award of Honour in Catalan letters.

 

She was an honorary member of the Associació d'Escriptors en Llengua Catalana (Association of Catalan Language Writers).

 

AWARDS

Crexells Award (1937): Aloma.

Natural Flower Floral Games (London, 1947 and Paris, 1948). Teacher named Gai Saber (Montevideo, 1949).

Juan Santamaria Award (1956), "Carnival."

Victor Catalan Award (1957): Twenty-two stories.

Critics Award (1965): The Camellia Street.

Sant Jordi Award (1966): The Camellia Street.

Ramon Llull Prize (1969): The Camellia Street.

Gold Award Letter (1976): Broken Mirror.

Award of Honour of Catalan Letters (1980).

Barcelona City Award Catalan Literature (1980): Travel and flowers.

Serra d'Or Critics Award (1980): How Much War ...

MÀRIUS TORRES

 

Marius Torres i Perenya was a catalan symbolist poet court. He was born on August 30, 1910 in Lleida. His father was a physician and political Humbert Torres and his mother, Maria Pereña. He had two younger than himself, brothers Victor and Núria.

In 1915 he was admitted to the School Liceu, which was a center of secular education. Following his school years, he continued his studies at the Institut General Tècnic i Lleida, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1926, currently Institut Marius Torres. When he completed his training in Barcelona started the medical career.

Marius lived from about the proclamation of the Republic and the inauguration of the Parliament of Catalonia. His father, spoke of them as active political, by the side of the Catalan republicanism.

In March 1928 the writer's mother died.

During February and March 1933, he made his trip to race. The same year, he was PhD in Madrid as a specialist in digestive diseases. On his return to Lleida worked in the office of his father.

From Marius Torres was the poem carved on the tombstone that reminded Republicans shot 1619 in Boot Camp Barcelona.

He died in the sanatorium of Puig d'Olena in Sant Quirze Safaja (Barcelona) on December 29, 1942.

 

 

Books

 

Pascual Piqué, Antoni.

Com un foc invisible

MIGUEL HERNANDEZ:

 

Miguel Hernandez was born in the Valencian Community. He was a poet. He published his first book at the age of 23. He campaigned for the Republic during the Spanish Civil War, writing poetry and addressing troops deployed to the front. Unlike others, he could not escape Spain after the Republican surrender and was arrested multiple times after the war for his anti-fascists sympathies, and was eventually sentenced to death. His death sentence, however, was commuted to a prison term of 30 years, leading to incarceration in multiple jails under extraordinarily harsh conditions until he eventually succumbed to tuberculosis in 1942. Just before his death, Hernandez scrawled his last verse on the wall of the hospital: Goodbye, brothers, comrades, friends: let me take my leave of the sun and the fields.