Brave souls

One of the fruits of this year's harvest after wandering among the stalls of the Catalan Book Week was the novel by Grazia Deledda Honorable soulsPublished by Ela Geminada. Until now, almost two months later, I hadn't had the chance to read it, and I've discovered that it's an edition that includes a surprise gift, which is always appreciated.

As you know, Grazia Deledda is a Sardinian author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (the second woman to win it). I discovered her a few years ago thanks to another Sardinian writer, Michela Murgia, who, despite being ideologically distant from her—Murgia was a feminist, leftist, and pro-independence—was a great admirer of her.

Honorable souls It is one of Deledda's early novels. She published it when she was only twenty-four, and it is a classic, naive, and delightful novel. This is no surprise considering that Grazia Deledda was born in 1871 into a Sardinian lower-middle-class family and, after her elementary studies, was educated by a private tutor who lived in her home.

Why is this edition ofHonorable souls What has Ela Geminada done? Well, because it's a revised edition of the Catalan translation that Maria Mariné did for the Catalonia publishing house in 1931 (Deledda was still alive, having recently won the Nobel Prize).

All of this is explained in a prologue by Professor Neus Real, who acknowledges that the 1931 translation could have been improved, but emphasizes the pioneering nature of Maria Mariné's work. The prologue is a treasure trove of fascinating information: how the Nobel Prize sparked interest in Deledda's work in Catalonia; the comparison made in a Madrid newspaper between the Sardinian author and our own Caterina Albert; and, above all, the remarkable fact that Maria Mariné, who was only twenty years old at the time, undertook the challenge of translating her. This young woman had just finished her library studies and had become interested in Italian culture thanks to the diplomat and scholar Eduard Toda i Güell, who had been a lecturer at the School of Librarians.

Mariné translated Honorable souls And it's clear that her work had some shortcomings. However—and with the appropriate corrections—Ela Geminada's edition has sought to rescue the translation by this young and daring Catalan woman from the beginning of the 20th century. And it's a fitting recognition, even to compensate her for the cold reception the work received upon its publication in 1931.

A prologue, then, accompanies this novel set in Sardinia and starring the Velena family, with cousins of various ages. I offer a taste to whet your appetite. It describes the reaction of the Velena mother when she sees her daughter leave to get married: "Maria Fara, however, did feel the void left by Angela, she felt that times were changing, she foresaw the perhaps not-too-distant exodus of the whole family and, as if deflowered by a breath of autumn air, she perceived the melanin.".