Ten illustrious geeks of Catalan science fiction

BarcelonaAt first glance, it may seem that science fiction has been a minority pursuit among Catalan authors. Historically, it hasn't been a genre highly valued by academia, it has received little—or poor—publication in the media, and readers have only embraced it en masse on rare occasions. The exhibition Essa EfaCurated by journalist, professor, and literary critic Joaquim Noguero (Manresa, 1964), the exhibition aims to correct this perception by exploring some of the most compelling (and largely unusual) works of Catalan science fiction. "Although science fiction has been represented primarily by authors, scholars, and publishers who have not positioned themselves within the..." mainstreamIt has more than a century of history, and perhaps its most recognizable success is the Second origin typescript"Manuel de Pedrolo's novel, which is by far the best-selling novel in the history of Catalan literature," Noguero recalls. One of the clichés of the fantasy genre defines its followers as geeks: perhaps those who cultivate them—even when they become best-sellers– they are too.

Essa Efa It takes its title from a collection of stories published in 1985 by the Ofèlia Dracs collective, and has been inaugurated in the Ignasi Iglésias - Can Fabra Library in Barcelona coinciding with the celebration, this week, of the fifth edition of the 42 Festival. It can be visited until January 6, 2026.

"Science fiction was born with the enthronement of reason and the progress of the modern age and, above all, with the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century," explains Noguero. "There had already been journeys to the Moon and automatons in the history of literature, sustained by magic and alchemy: everything changes."

The first science fiction novel in Catalan was published in 1912 and was titled Artificial menIts author, Frederic Pujulà (Palamós, 1877 - Bargemon, 1963), imagined the creation of a dozen organic artificial men who were meant to improve humanity, but instead of achieving perfection, they fell into the same vices and defects as mortals. Artificial men –reissued in 2010 by Pagès Editors–, Pujulà anticipated the robots, patented by the writer Karel Capek in the play RUR in 1920, which would simultaneously anticipate androids or clones, as Sebastià Roig recalled in the essay The future of our grandparents (Girona Provincial Council, 2012). "Pujulà's science fiction has a prospective and political capacity, a path also followed by pioneers of the genre such as Onofre Parés in The island of the great experiment (1927) and Josep M. Francés in Return to the sun (1936) and, later, Aurora Bertrana in The city of young people (1971) and Lorenzo Villalonga in Andrea Víctrix (1973)", says Joaquim Noguero.

The archetype of the strange scientist soon infiltrated the nascent Catalan science fiction. Elvira Augusta Lewi (1909-1970), "one of those women of the thirties, cultured and daring, a journalist, raised on cinema and the fast-paced prose of the media," was the first author to incorporate it into The inhabitants of the 200th floor (1936), which the publishing house Males Hierbas recovered in 2023. Joaquim Noguero also highlights the even lesser-known contribution to the genre by the actress, playwright and theater director Montserrat Julió (1929-2017), author of a single novel, Memoirs of a Barbaric Future (1975), reissued in 2006 by Pagès.

With over one and a half million copies, Second origin typescript, of Manuel de Pedrolo (1918-1990), is the best-selling novel in Catalan literature. Published in 1974, it tells the survival story of two young people, Alba and Dídac, after an alien attack that has exterminated the rest of humanity. The dystopian novel attempts to imagine the possible survival of the species through the two protagonists, who must decide whether or not to reproduce. "Pedrolo didn't particularly love the Typescript"Because it had overshadowed the rest of his literary output," Joaquim Noguero remarks. "He experimented a great deal, and he also dared to try his hand at all genres. Another notable science fiction novel of his was..." Simultaneous successor [1981], which tells of a journey through time." A few years ago, when Noguero read The road, by Cormac McCarthy (2006), realized that some scenes in this novel had already been foreshadowed decades earlier by Pedrolo Typescript.

Ofelia Dracs was the pseudonym used by a group of writers from the literary generation of the 70s to reclaim, through literary play and a sense of humor, literary genres such as the erotic (The apple tree has ten apples., 1980), the fantastic (Lovecraft, Lovecraft, 1981) and science fiction (Essa Efa(1985). Among the authors were Jaume Cabré, Pep Albanell, Jaume Fuster, Maria Antònia Oliver, Joaquim Carbó, and Margarida Aritzeta. Some of them would go on to write entire science fiction novels outside of the collective volume, as can be seen in the exhibition at the Ignasi Iglésias Library - Can Fabra. Joaquim Carbó (Caldes de Malavella, 1932) is particularly noteworthy. Kaleidoscope of water and sun (1979), aimed at young readers, and by Margarida Aritzeta (Valls, 1953), Graphemia (1982), where he poses "a kind of apocalypse or dystopia of the printed word," as Noguero specifies.

Whether as a novelist or storyteller – with books like Torsimán's job (1985) and I reset the odometer to zero. (2008) – as editor – he has directed the emblematic collection Purple and Silver de Pagès, inaugurated in 2000—or as an anthologist—he has published three emblematic volumes, the last of which was Imperfect futures (2013)–, Antoni Munné-Jordà (Barcelona, ​​1948) could be defined as thealeph of contemporary Catalan science fiction. "He is a master of masters and the great popularizer of the genre, while at the same time never ceasing to practice and expand it," Noguero summarizes.

"When I write things about the future, it's so they don't happen," the author acknowledged, coinciding with the publication of one of his latest novels. Michelada (Weeds, 2015). Munné-Jordà has paved the way for researchers like Víctor Martínez-Gil, who in 2003 published a highly influential anthology, The other worlds of Catalan literature (Galaxia Gutenberg, 2003), who has more recently had a twin sister, One Earth, beyond (Sfabula, 2023), focused on science fiction written from the beginning of the post-war period to the end of the Franco regime, a little-known period that includes narratives by Anna Murià, Pere Verdaguer, Joan B. Xuriguera and Màrius Lleget.

"Many scientists have turned to science fiction, perhaps because of what Jules Verne said: that whatever one human being can imagine, another will eventually create," recalls Joaquim Noguero. When science becomes a "scenic and atmospheric" component, then we're talking about a subgenre like... space opera, that Catalan is very well represented thanks to the ambitious novel Stella Signataby Ricard Efa, of which Mai Més has already published the first four volumes (two more remain). But science can also be a "core element" in fiction, and there are scientists who have excelled at delving into it, as has been the case with Salvador Macip in Hypnophobia (Proa, 2012), Jordi de Manuel in Manperel's decision (Column, 2013), Martí Domínguez to Mother (Proa, 2022) and Carme Torras. A mathematician and writer born in Barcelona in 1956, Torras has specialized in artificial intelligence and assistive robotics, and has cultivated science fiction in novels such as The sentimental mutation (Pagès, 2009) and collections of stories such as Dear machines (Weeds, 2020). "There is a feedback loop between science fiction and technological development," the author argues.

The lyrics from the songbook of Jaume Sisa (Barcelona, ​​1948) inaugurated the galactic philosophy, "a new way of interpreting and ordering reality based on the acceptance of all possible or imagined realities." Songs like The seventh heaven and The star counter They broadened the boundaries of Catalan pop, an imaginary galactic school where we would also find Pau Riba, Pascal Comelade, Quimi Portet, and Albert Pla. Also Antònia Font, who in 2004 released Taxi, one of the albums most influenced by the landscapes of science fiction and its protagonists, where "rhyming astronauts" coexist with extraterrestrials, efficient robots and electron storms.

A large portion of the more than twenty novels written by Montserrat Galicia (Cornellà de Llobregat, 1947) are science fiction, and most are aimed at young adults. In the exhibition at the Ignasi Iglésias Library - Can Fabra, Joaquim Noguero highlights three: PH1 A Copernicus (Laia, 1984), The wind among the saguaros (Pagès, 2014) and Stretching the scarlet thread (Payés, 2017).

Montserrat Galicia is not alone in writing science fiction for young people. She has been preceded by authors such as Joaquim Carbó, Pep Albanell, and Guillem Viladot, and is accompanied, generationally, by David Cirici –with the long-seller The whale skeleton (Empúries, 1986) – and the prolific Jordi Sierra i Fabra, which with more than a hundred titles, written in Catalan and Spanish, has helped to familiarize new generations of readers with dystopian societies, interstellar travel and robots with souls.

Over the past fifteen years, thanks to the immense work of publishers like Males Herbes, Mai Més, Raig Verd, Pagès, and Spècula, and specialized bookstores like Gigamesh, the community of fantasy and science fiction readers has continued to grow in Catalonia. Restless and unclassifiable authors like Núria Perpiñán (Lleida, 1961) have not resisted the temptation to write novels as valuable as Diatom (La Granada, 2022). Inscribed within the subgenre of climate fiction, Diatom Travel to the 23rd century, where floods threaten humanity's survival until a renowned scientist believes he has found a viable solution: eliminating rivers, seas, lakes, and oceans from the planet. In the future world Perpiñán imagines, citizens undergo daily tests to determine their intake of nutritional supplements, and in schools, teachers no longer teach children, but rather the other way around. Wars no longer exist because only women can enter politics, and environmentalists hold power.

One of the authors, journalists, and cultural managers who has most fiercely fought over the last few decades to promote fantasy genres is Ricard Ruiz Garzón (Barcelona, ​​1973). The driving force and curator of the 42 Festival, held at Fabra i Coats for the past five years, he has also explored science fiction in novels such as Black grass (Fanbooks, 2016) and Janowitz (Fanbooks, 2021), co-written with Salvador Macip, and has devised anthologies such as Barcelona 2059 (Never Again, 2021), set on an artificial island located opposite Barceloneta, designed to house a utopian, hyper-technological and post-humanist society that, in some of the stories conceived by authors such as Roser Cabré-VerdiellIvan Ledesma and Laura Tomàs Mora, it becomes a nightmare.