Gloria de Castro recommends 'Mourning Witch' by Maria-Mercè Marçal
The author of 'Els temples solemnes' still remembers the impact of the poet's book.
Llubí"There will be love migrated to the bottom of pockets": patapam, that verse landed in my life like a vacation. It was the year of the Barcelona Olympics and I was eighteen. I devoured the poetry collection. Mourning Witch, of Maria-Mercè Marçal (Ivars d'Urgell, 1952 - Barcelona, 1998), in one go, in the beautiful grey-covered edition by Edicions 62", says Gloria de Castro, who published her second novel this summer, The solemn temples, in Ediciones del Periscopio, three years after receiving the Llibreter Prize for his debut, The moment before impact.
"It was the first time I read poetry and I thought, 'This book is about me,'" the author continues. "Maria-Mercè Marçal wrote it when she was only 25, and I thought that finally someone understood my teenage turmoil. The author speaks of a rite of passage, fairies, into the world of adulthood, falling in love, loneliness. The solemn templesGloria de Castro was impressed, and continues to be, by "the primordial images of the stories, the magical women, the moon and the disturbing attic where "the dark staircase of desire has no railing" of a poet who later published books such as Open salt (Libros del Mazo, 1982), The sister, the foreigner (Mall Books, 1985) and The Passion According to Renée Vivien (Columna, 1994). "All these elements served as an anchor when I got lost in the work of writing," De Castro says. "Read Mourning WitchFor me, it's like coming home. It's like falling in love again with our language, with its brevity, shelter, sweetness, and joy. Here, Catalan pops like popcorn. And there are waves, and fish, and lizards, and summer love.