The grand return of a pioneer of Catalan literature to the Valencian Community

Amadeu Fabregat was, in the 1970s, a pioneer of Catalan literature in the Valencian Community. Two of his titles are legendary: Fresh Meat: Young Valencian Poetry and the novel –or whatever it was– Rehearsal for the approach to "Fallas Folles Fetes Foc"With these two depth charges—especially the second, which won the Andròmina de Octubre Prize—Fabregat made a name for himself in Valencia at the end of the Franco regime, where all aesthetic daring, all political extremism, and all cultural snobbery were lavishly celebrated.

After a long career as a journalist, Fabregat did not continue his literary career. In fact, the next milestone in his relationship with the Catalan language would come in a much darker, but equally explosive, episode: as director of the brand-new Canal 9, he ordered the editors not to use a list of 543 words considered "too Catalanist" [sic], such as seal, chart and vacation [sic sic]. These were the years when the anti-Catalan movement was gaining some traction in the city of Valencia, and the head of the regional television network reacted in this measured manner.

After this period, Fabregat devoted himself to his audiovisual business and had no other known practical literary hobby. Now, suddenly, he's back in the spotlight with a novel of over 500 pages that resembles a final testament.

The Ring of the Nibelung It's a novel about Valencia where this word is never mentioned. Its protagonist, Ernest Millet, is a physical geography professor who left a southern city known as M in the 1960s and has spent his entire working life in a northern European town.

Already retired, he returns to M. to attend the performance of the four parts of The Ring of the Nibelung, Wagner's masterpiece. The sudden death of all his immediate family members (parents, grandparents, sister) during his prodigious decade and a love affair that troubled him led to his flight. He spent more than half his life in exile, a period during which he discovered Wagner, decided to write a book about the great master, and became obsessed to the bitter end with the delirious and sumptuous world of the Valkyries and Valhalla.

Classic, elegant and sober

It is undeniable that The Ring of the Nibelung It has a powerful literary quality. Fabregat makes the gift of chest, in a classic, elegant, and sober style of writing. If he didn't want to go down in history as an author unius libri and be remembered literarily only for the seventies delirium of Crazy fallas made fire has achieved it.

The underlying motivation behind the project is another matter. The first time Ernest Millet attended a performance of the tetralogy, he experienced a distraught experience: "That feeling gave him hope that redemption was possible, no matter how excessive his guilt had been."

Indeed, redemption is possible. If Fabregat coerced and repressed his subordinates more than thirty years ago to harass and hide evidence of the unity of the Catalan language, he now seeks redemption by writing a novel in Eastern Catalan, without any concessions to the localisms that...

And as for me, what can I say? It all seems fine to me. If Jack the Ripper had written a literary masterpiece, I would read it with relish. Amadeu Fabregat isn't a murderer: he simply played the role that fell to him at a given moment, following the dictates of circumstance. Now he's forged a ring, like Alberic, with gold stolen from the river of words. Welcome to the club of great literature.