Catalan Literature

An occasionally absurd comedy of indecision and indolence from a maverick early modern. First published in 1936, and considered one of the most innovative and significant novels written in Catalan, Waltz tells the tale of an idle, introspective, and somewhat oblivious young “man without qualities” as he stumbles through a milieu of civic upheaval and bourgeois tragedy as he waltzes from one prospective bride to another, never willing to compromise his ideals, and so never quite becoming an adult. With one foot in the romanticism of Goethe or Kleist, and another in the wildly differing takes on the modern novel provided by Aldous Huxley, James Joyce, and Marcel Proust, respectively, Waltz is an occasionally absurd comedy of indecision and indolence structured in imitation of the dance from which it takes its title.

This book presents the evolution of Catalan folk literature studies in each of the areas that make up the Catalan linguistic and cultural territories. The period considered stretches from the mid-nineteenth century, when the beginnings of a scientific interest in folklore emerged across Europe, to the present day.

Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell's personal account of his experiences and observations fighting for the POUM militia of the Republican army during the Spanish Civil War. The war was one of the defining events of his political outlook and a significant part of what led him to write in 1946, "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for Democratic Socialism, as I understand it." The first edition was published in the United Kingdom in 1938. The book was not published in the United States until February 1952, when it appeared with an influential preface by Lionel Trilling. The only translation published in Orwell's lifetime was into Italian, in December 1948. A French translation by Yvonne Davet-with whom Orwell corresponded, commenting on her translation and providing explanatory notes-in 1938-39, was not published until five years after Orwell's death. Book Summary: Orwell served as a private, a corporal (cabo) and-when the informal command structure of the militia gave way to a conventional hierarchy in May 1937-as a lieutenant, on a provisional basis, in Catalonia and Aragon from December 1936 until June 1937. In June 1937, the leftist political party with whose militia he served (the POUM, the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification, an anti-Stalinist communist party) was declared an illegal organisation, and Orwell was consequently forced to flee. Having arrived in Barcelona on 26 December 1936, Orwell told John McNair, the Independent Labour Party's (ILP) representative there, that he had "come to Spain to join the militia to fight against Fascism." He also told McNair that "he would like to write about the situation and endeavour to stir working class opinion in Britain and France." McNair took him to the POUM barracks, where Orwell immediately enlisted. "Orwell did not know that two months before he arrived in Spain, the [Soviet law enforcement agency] NKVD's resident in Spain, Aleksandr Orlov, had assured NKVD Headquarters, 'the Trotskyist organisation POUM can easily be liquidated'-by those, the Communists, whom Orwell took to be allies in the fight against Franco."

This book presents a small chapter in the intellectual history of the Jews of Majorca. Its key figure is Elisha ben Abraham Bevenisti Cresques (1325-1387) a cartographer in the service of King Peter IV of Aragon and a scribe and illuminator of Hebrew books. Elisha Cresques' career evolves at a point in time when some of the most fascinating threads of methodological interests relevant to intellectual history meet. He emerges as a hub, so to speak, where mapmaking converged with scribal work, miniature painting with scientific knowledge, and the culture of a minority with that of the majority. How he was able to negotiate his patron's expectations and his own cultural identity and frame them within the political, cultural, and religious discourses of his time is the subject of this book.

Private Life holds up a mirror to the moral corruption in the interstices of the Barcelona high society Sagarra was born into. Boudoirs of demimonde tramps, card games dilapidating the fortunes of milquetoast aristocrats - and how they scheme to conceal them - fading manors of selfish scions, and back rooms provided by social-climbing seamstresses are portrayed in vivid, sordid, and literary detail. The novel, practically a roman-à-clef for its contemporaries, was a scandal in 1932. The 1960's edition was bowdlerized by Franco's censors. Part Lampedusa, part Genet, this translation will bring an essential piece of 20th-century European literature to the English-speaking public.

A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF 2017 A classic Catalan work about love, family, and class during the Spanish Civil war. Spain, 1937. Posted to the Aragonese front, Lieutenant Lluís Ruscalleda eschews the drunken antics of his comrades and goes in search of intrigue. But the lady of Castel de Olivo—a beautiful widow with a shadowy past—puts a high price on her affections. In Barcelona, Trini Milmany struggles to raise Lluís’s son on her own, letters from the front her only solace. With bombs falling as fast as the city’s morale, she leaves to spend the winter with Lluís’s brigade on a quiet section of the line. But even on “dead” fronts the guns do not stay silent for long. Trini’s decision will put her family’s fate in the hands of Juli Soleràs, an old friend and a traitor of easy conscience, a philosopher-cynic locked in an eternal struggle with himself. Joan Sales, a combatant in the Spanish Civil War, distilled his experiences into a timeless story of thwarted love, lost youth, and crushed illusions. A thrilling epic that has drawn comparison with the work of Dostoyevsky and Stendhal, Uncertain Glory is a homegrown counterpart to classics such as Homage to Catalonia and For Whom the Bell Tolls.

In writing this brief history of Catalan literature, I have tried to bear in mind the needs of the non-specialist reader with some knowledge of Spanish who wishes to know more about an important but, on the whole, neglected area of Peninsular culture. Where English readers are concerned, the task, unfortunately, is long overdue: in a recent and otherwise excellent literary encyclopedia, the whole of Catalan literature is allotted the same amount of space as Jean-Paul Sartre, and this seems characteristic of a situation which few specialists as yet have tried to alter. The chief barrier, of course, is linguistic: yet it is not difficult to acquire at least a reading knowledge of Catalan, and for reasons which are given in Chapter 1, the older literature is relatively accessible to a modern reader compared, say, with that of France or Spain. This accessibility gives an impression of coherence to the entire range of Catalan literature which is reinforced to a great extent by social and historical tendencies. Roughly speaking, Catalan literature follows a recognizable European pattern, with one notable exception: the fact that its course is interrupted for something like three centuries by what is usually known as the period of "Decadence" (see Chapter 2). To see why this should be so demands an awareness of certain historical facts, and these in turn point to the close interpenetration of literature and society which is evident in most phases of Catalan culture. Both the 19th-century revival and the more conscious programs of noucentisme in the 20th are attempts to create a new national identity, a task which has lost none of its urgency in the years since the Spanish Civil War. - Preface.

The Catalan Kitchen is a celebration of eighty-five authentic and traditional dishes from Spain's culinary heart. The Catalonia region is situated on the west coast of the Mediterranean and blessed with one of the richest food cultures in Europe. Although Catalonia is still geographically and politically connected to Spain, Catalans consider themselves independent with their own language, history, culture, and cuisine. Its food is considered unique in Spain, and it is home to one of the highest concentrations of Michelin-starred restaurants in the world. Catalan cuisine does not center around tapas, and although pintxos do feature heavily, they are not the mainstay of the region and most dishes are larger, stand-alone meals. Dishes are heavily influenced by pork and fresh seafood, with a focus on fresh, seasonal produce that varies from recipes as simple as crushed tomatoes smeared on bread to hearty, slowcooked stews. Famous dishes include calçots--large salad onions cooked on a coal barbecue and then dipped into nutty and addictive Romesco sauce, a unique paella made without saffron and the addition of vermicelli noodles, myriad types of Catalan sausage served with white beans, sauces such as aioli and picada, and multiple pastries and desserts including crème Catalan (a version of crème brûlée). Beautifully packaged with stunning location and food photography, The Catalan Kitchen is the ultimate cookbook for lovers of Spanish and Mediterranean food.

The first and only guide in English to the influential body of Catalan literature, from the middle ages to the present day.

Squeezed between more powerful France and Spain, Catalonia has endured a violent history. Its medieval empire that conquered Naples, Sicily and Athens was crushed by Spain. Its geography, with the Pyrenees falling sharply to the rugged Costa Brava, is tormented, too. Michael Eaude traces this history and its monuments: Roman Tarragona, celebrated by the poet Martial; Greek Empuries, lost for centuries beneath the sands; medieval Romanesque architecture in the Vall de Boi churches (a World Heritage Site) and Poblet and Santes Creus monasteries. He tells the stories of several of Catalonia's great figures: Abbot Oliva, who brought Moorish learning to Europe, the ruthless mercenary, Roger de Flor, and Verdaguer, handsome poet-priest. Catalonia is famous today for its twentieth-century art. This book focuses on the revolutionary Art Nouveau buildings (including the Sagrada Familia) of Antoni Gaudi. It also explores the region's artistic legacy: the young Picasso painting Barcelona’s vibrant slums; Salvador Dali, inspired by the twisted rocks of Cap de Creus to paint his landscapes of the human mind; and Joan Miro, discovering the colours of the red earth at Montroig.