Mary Ann Newman: "I fell in love with Catalonia already on the train, just looking at the vegetation"

A skyline of New York and, amidst the skyscrapers, a rose rises and a dragon rests on a rooftop. It is the image of a Saint George in the American city that serves as the background for her LinkedIn profile, since she does not have any image on WhatsApp. If the group Los Mismos sang about that physical bridge that would connect the Peninsula with Mallorca, Mary Ann Newman is also the main bridge, in this case metaphorical, that connects Catalan culture with New York.

What was your first contact with Catalan?

— It was with culture before language. Around the year 1967 they were holding a retrospective at the MoMA on Dada and surrealism that was my absolute intellectual awakening. Three artists caught my attention: Picasso, Miró and Dalí. Since I didn't know them, I pronounced "Jòan Miró" and thought it must be a woman. Until I got home to look at the encyclopedia, of course!

You arrive in Madrid at 20 years old...

— At that time, many students stayed with widows from the Civil War. They were often gloomy houses, but I ended up with a cheerful Catalan widow, with a daughter my age to whom she spoke in Catalan. I was studying Spanish and Portuguese at the time, but I loved the sound of Catalan.

But you make the connection with Barcelona.

— I went there from Madrid a few times. I remember falling in love with Catalonia on the train, looking at the Mediterranean vegetation that I had learned about in school. And I felt comfortable in Barcelona, an open, bilingual city, with a port... Franco was there, but not as present as in Madrid. It was love at first sight.

How do you see Barcelona now? Some intellectuals have been singing of its decadence for decades.

— I neither shared the diagnosis a few years ago, when they started with this, nor do I share it now. On the contrary, Barcelona is so international that it even worries me! And I am not talking about tourism, which is already a fact everywhere. I am thinking about the expat phenomenon... I am pro-immigration and I celebrate that it is a global city. However, that people arrive attracted by the quality of life and the good economic and technological level, but are not interested at all in the culture behind all of this... it worries me.

You are the great cultural ambassador between New York and Catalonia. How should this task continue to be carried out in the year 2026?

— There is a model that everyone follows: the Alliance Française, the British Council, the Goethe-Institut, which is based on choosing our best writer, artist or musician and taking them to New York and Washington. It is presented as an export. But the new cultural projection project of the European Union is based on putting these people in a community, and having them create a network. This seems more dynamic to me.

In your inaugural lecture of the course at the UAB you explained that the Catalan footprint in the United States is like the elephant metaphor, which six blind people feel in pieces. That is to say, we do not yet have a global image of it. Why?

— We need to combine to create the whole. And it would be very interesting if the Institute for Catalan Studies, the universities, and possibly the government worked on this historiography project.

For a writer to make a name for themselves in the United States is complicated, if the figures are true that only 3% of the titles published in the country, and 1% of sales, are translations.

— These figures have not been reviewed for years. I would say that not everything is catastrophic and we have cases like Karl Ove Knausgård or Elena Ferrante. There is more interest in translations and publishers who realize two advantages: the work has already passed a filter abroad and, furthermore, it is generally cheaper to acquire them. I think that sales of translations will go up.

And do we sell our writers well in Catalonia?

— Yes. Irene Solà has broken barriers and Eva Baltasar, too. Monzó, who was one of the first, remains very well regarded. The fact is there is no resistance to Catalan literature: it is not considered minor at all. It is one of the virtues of English: it acts as a great leveler, because it does not matter if the original is in Thai, Catalan, or Spanish.

We live in an era of identity retreat in the world. Does this affect the projection of Catalan culture?

— Catalan culture has a need to protect itself, but it does not reject opening up at all. And the fact of being a minoritized culture means that there are currents of sympathy with other minoritized cultures. Now, if we open these windows and some air comes in to say that we are everywhere, I think that then it will breathe better. I don't know how it should be done, but let us keep in mind that Catalans did a great many things in the United States while being very few people.

Speaking of elephants: Trump is destroying many things. Culture too?

— I don't understand, for example, why there isn't a protest song. I suppose we are stunned and don't know how to react to this new phenomenon that is everywhere. But yes, I am worried about the lack of reaction capacity of American society. Everyone laments, at least in my circles, but I myself don't know what to do. I don't know how I can be useful in the resistance.

“Only that which is human is truly strange”. These are verses by Wisława Szymborska against borders, in which she points out that clouds cross them with impunity. You recited them during your speech at the university. Why?

— If ants and birds cross borders, we must also be able to do so. I once gave a lecture called “In favor of borders, but not walls.” Because a border tells you where you are and situates you. If you don't have one, you don't know how to direct yourself. The border itself is not bad, but the wall, the checkpoint... that is what ruins us as humans.

You worked side by side with Pasqual Maragall. What was his vision regarding Barcelona's projection to the world?

— He had this vision of the city as a hub of culture and of Barcelona as an important beacon, and people bought into it. In fact, both Maragall and Pujol shared the belief that Catalonia had to be in the world.

What remains of Maragallism in Salvador Illa's PSC?

— Do you know I don't know? I know that Salvador Illa is inspired by Maragall and considers him his mentor. That the PSC also does so... I don't know.

And beyond the PSC, do current politicians maintain this broad perspective?

— I don't follow it enough, but I don't detect that it is their concern. That is to say, they understand it and there are institutions that are dedicated to it, but it does not seem to me to be an important axis of action. Governments are now very concerned about the interior.

What still brings Barcelona and New York together?

— That we come from mixtures. And also that we have been financial, publishing, economic, creative capitals... but not state capitals. In any case, unlike New York, it is evident that Barcelona is a country's capital.

In what sense?

— It is a capital. A capital city, if you will. This is one of the things Maragall was clear about: the city is an entity in itself, real, structural. The real world is more city than state. Maragall's vision was a world of cities and regions where the state weighed less and less. Of course, from Madrid they would tell him: "But, Pasqual, what will we do then?"