The night without tears of Catalan Literature

As I left the National Palace, Raimon's verse came to mind: "We are many more than they want and say." The power, the elegance, and the harmony of the words and accents of the Catalan language, which are heard millions of times every day, They gathered at a gala that slipped in precisely And it was our place in the world for one night.

What Carles Rebassa said we've said here many times: as long as Catalan isn't essential for living in Catalan-speaking countries, we'll keep patching things up. And everyone knows that isn't and won't be possible with Spain, for which the Catalan language and culture are an intolerable obstacle in a political and social idiosyncrasy that has Catalanophobia as a defining characteristic. It's normal, therefore, that when thousands of people celebrate an evening of Catalan-language writers, the obvious becomes clear: why should such a powerful culture, shared by speakers and creators from the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands, Catalonia, and Andorra, have to suffer for its future in its own land?

Why hasn't there been a single Catalan writer who has won the Nobel Prize for Literature? In 125 years, haven't we given the world a single universal author? Who were Maragall, Guimerà, Pla, Espriu, or Rodoreda? Don't make me laugh. Everyone knows the answer. It's the same with sports teams and Olympic squads. That's why we have to play the ignominious game of enduring repression, of seizing a space when someone's not looking, of taking advantage of a fleeting moment of imbalance of power to leverage ourselves, with all the toll it takes on our self-esteem to have to deal with it with one hand behind our back. And to do it, as Grasset reminded us, quoting Murdoch, "drying our tears in an endless war for freedom."