Goodbye to Maria Carme Dalmau, the editor who overcame a thousand and one obstacles to promote Catalan culture

BarcelonaWithout the persistence of the editor Maria Carme Dalmau, we would surely be missing many reference works on the history and heritage of Catalonia today. She worked a great deal, even during the greyness and repression of Francoism, to publicize and make accessible to the public books that explained the country's past, geography, and traditions. And she did so by overcoming very significant legal and economic obstacles. She circumvented censorship by devising a thousand and one stratagems. Born in Barcelona in 1930, the editor died this Thursday at the age of 96.

"She was an energetic woman, and at the same time gentle. She didn't have a bad word to say, but she wouldn't let you get away with anything. She had a significant capacity for resilience, and that can only be if you have a certain capacity to adapt to setbacks and successes. She was very aware that culture makes us free as a society, as a country," says her son, Rafael Dalmau. Maria Carme Dalmau was born among books and always lived among them. She could not finish her studies and was self-taught. "She couldn't study because she belonged to a family that had lost the war. She tried to collaborate with all sorts of initiatives, in this sense: she acted as a bridge between self-taught historians and academically trained historians who have been able to make a significant leap in the country's historiography," assures Rafel Dalmau.

She entered the world of publishing at a very young age. At twelve years old, she began to help at the Librería Dalmau in Barcelona, and at fifteen she joined fully. Between 1946 and 1959, she worked at Editorial Dalmau y Jover. In 1959, together with her father, Rafael Dalmau i Ferreres, she founded Rafael Dalmau Editor, which she directed between 1971 and 1996. It is impossible to encompass everything she edited and published. One of the first books she published was Mosaic, by Vic­tor Català. Among the collections she promoted are the Episodis de la Història, with 379 issues to date, and Els Castells Catalans, in six volumes. She was the editor of the work Món casteller, which was directed by Pere Català i Roca, her husband, and which contributed decisively to the dissemination and dignification of the casteller tradition. In 1978, she participated in the founding of the Associació d’Editors en Llengua Catalana (1978). She was a pioneer: she was the only woman. Throughout her life, she accompanied hundreds of writers. "She was everywhere, with the same rigor and care, in the publishing world, in research, in dissemination and in diffusion. She attached great importance to booksellers, because she was aware that we are all in the same trench," says her son. "She always defended that the Catalan territory does not end at the Sénia or La Jonquera, but rather is where Catalan is spoken, and that includes l'Alguer," he adds.

Her career was recognized with several awards. In 1985, she received the Creu de Sant Jordi, and in 2017, the Premi Isidre de Rabassó d’Identitat Castellera. In 2021, at ninety-one years old, she received the Premi Nacional de Cultura. When she received the award, she recalled when the historian Ferran Soldevila went to see her father with the idea that "Catalans should read a history article at least once a month." That was the birth of the emblematic Episodis de la Història. Maria Carme Dalmau was the one who traveled to Madrid to obtain the permits to start a collection of brief, inexpensive, and popular history books about Catalonia that, 65 years later, is still active. A few days ago, Maria Carme was able to hold the last published issue in her hands and never stopped asking about the world of books.

The farewell ceremony will take place on Saturday, March 28, at 12 noon at the funeral home in Terrassa, a city where he has lived since 2023 and where Rafael Dalmau Editor has been based since 2020. The vigil will take place on Friday, March 27, from 12 noon to 9 in the evening at the same funeral home.