"Lola, I ask you and it is my wish that of these letters I am writing to you, you have an enlargement made, in the form of a diploma, to have it displayed in my bedroom or my dining room, because I want my children to know it thoroughly and that if they kill me, they will not have to lower their heads for anyone. And another day they will know how to defend the rights that belong to them, for me, for the Republic. Goodbye. Keep this writing, which is the original. Barcelona, May 25, 1939." It is the farewell letter of Salvador Ros i Ros before being shot at Camp de la Bota on June 20, 1939, and buried, without his family being able to say goodbye, in a mass grave in Montjuïc cemetery. He was 41 years old and left behind a widow and two children, Lluís (1927) and Maria Carme (1930).

There is a certain sense of déjà-vu when it comes to the diagnosis of the Catalan cultural system that the National Council of Culture and the Arts (CoNCA) produces every year. There is creative effervescence, but structural problems persist, such as job insecurity, territorial inequalities, and a decline in the social use of Catalan.

"I have a craving, oh, relentless, / for the knight who has served me," wrote the Countess of Dia in the late 12th century. "I am the bad whore, all dirty, a creature responsible for desire," writes Paula S. Piedad in the 21st century. Between one and the other, nine centuries. The path, however, has been very slow. "Female desire has been systematically demonized or misinterpreted," assure Raquel Casas and Lídia Gàzquez, professors, researchers, and creators of the podcasts geMMinades and LiteraCura't, who publish Foc al cos (Proa). It is an anthology that traces erotic poetry written by women in Catalan, from the medieval trobairitz to the youngest voices of today.

January 2024, ARA revealed for the first time some staggering figures. During the Civil War (1936-1939), the cemetery of Sant Boi de Llobregat – a municipality that at the time barely exceeded 10,000 inhabitants – registered the death of more than 3,000 people admitted to the municipality's psychiatric hospital. This Saturday, finally, the memory of those men and women has been rescued from anonymity with an institutional tribute. A plaque from the Directorate General for Democratic Memory makes them visible and recalls their history. Their descendants not only have a place to bring flowers, but they also know something more about those who died a few meters from the cemetery. Just a week ago, after many demands, they received the medical records of some of their relatives.

"We don't know the Church's heritage, but that's not the problem, because the institution can own and inherit assets. The real problem is that it has appropriated public goods by taking advantage of a Francoist privilege that has continued into democracy. It's a great plunder that worsened with the mortgage reform law of 1998", assures Antonio Manuel Rodríguez Ramos, professor of Civil Law at the University of Cordoba. Rodríguez co-authors, along with journalist Aristóteles Moreno Villafaina, the book El expolio de las inmatriculaciones de la iglesia. La mezquita de Córdoba y otros casos de libro (Akal).

"I have always been fascinated by the figure of the 'indians', but there is a lot of myth surrounding them," explains the novelist, screenwriter and playwright Pere Anglas (Mataró, 1966), who has won the Nèstor Luján historical novel prize with El sastre de Barcelona (Columna). Historiography has already taken care of dismantling the myth of impoverished men who traveled to Cuba and Puerto Rico and returned very rich thanks to their intelligence and effort. There was also the exploitation of slave labor, and one of the men who profited most from it was Antonio López.

The Romans left a profound mark on the Iberian Peninsula, visible in Latin, Roman law, aqueducts, bridges, amphitheaters, and triumphal arches. Thanks to genetics, we now know that their arrival also changed the population's DNA. A study led by researchers from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and published in the journal iScience has obtained the most complete and precise picture to date of the history and genetic evolution of the Iberian peoples who inhabited the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula from the beginnings of the Iron Age until the Roman conquest, between 2,700 and 2,100 years ago.

Success can be paralyzing. At least it was for Kathryn Stockett (Jackson, 1969). The writer grew up in Mississippi, where she has set her only two novels. Of the first, The help (2009; Criadas y señoras in the Spanish edition by Maeva), she sold 15 million copies and it became an Oscar-winning film. Sixteen years later, she has published El club de les indomables (Columna), translated into Catalan by Núria Parés Sellarès. It has not been an easy process for her to write this story about a group of white women who do whatever it takes to survive during the Great Depression in Mississippi and titled The calamity club in English.

The President of the United States, Donald Trump, has once again demonstrated his hostility towards the media. Yesterday, Sunday, the Republican leader abruptly left an interview previously arranged for the well-known political analysis program Meet the Press, on NBC. This is not the first time Trump has made it clear that he does not like questions or being questioned, especially if female journalists do it. Here you can read the full transcript of the interview.

The medieval monastery of Sant Pere de Rodes, in Cap de Creus, has managed to revive one of its greatest lost treasures: its 12th-century marble portal. Through the Eyes of History, an audiovisual project, the monument has recreated the original composition of this Romanesque gem, accompanied by an immersive experience that transports the visitor directly to the feudal era.

"Discovering these Hebrew fragments has been one of those wonderful coincidences," says Laura Tienda, director of the Terra Alta Regional Archive. They are the first parchments in the Hebrew language found in the Terres de l'Ebre and were in Casa Coll, an imposing building of medieval origin located in the historic center of Vilalba dels Arcs, on the corner between Carrer Major and Carrer del Call. The house belonged to the same family until recently and has a very long history: it served as headquarters for the Carlist general Ramon Cabrera during the 19th century and suffered severe damage during the Civil War.

"I believe that today or tomorrow they will take us to Montjuïc. [...] I have nothing but to thank our Lord God who gives me reason and occasion to suffer [...] Do not lose hope. Cheer up!".These are the words written by Domènec Ribas Prat on November 11, 1938, two and a half months before Franco's troops occupied Barcelona. Ribas (1888-1955), manager of Magatzems Jorba —Can Jorba, on Portal d'Àngel in Barcelona—, addressed it to his wife, Neus Jorba, just after learning of the sentence condemning him to death. Although his file has not been preserved at the Model Prison, the text indicates that when he wrote the letter his transfer to Montjuïc Castle was imminent. Together with the text, Oriol Font, the businessman's grandson, has handed over to the association Memòria i Història de ManresaMemòria i Història de Manresa an unpublished drawing by an unknown author that portrays the businessman during his captivity in Montjuïc.

Barcelona's underground is dotted with air-raid shelters, and they all have a story behind them. 1,322 have been located, but there could be many more. The latest to be discovered could be shelter 230 of the Passive Defense Board and would connect to the area around the Abaceria Market.

The French-Iranian illustrator and filmmaker Marjane Satrapi has died at the age of 56, as communicated by her family to the AFP agency. Satrapi had withdrawn from public life months prior due to the death of her husband, producer and actor Mattias Ripa, who died on April 8, 2025. "Marjane Satrapi died of sadness just over a year after the death of Mattias Ripa, her husband and the love of her life," states the press release made public by the illustrator's family, which does not specify the cause of death.

The French writer Julie Héraclès first saw when she was in high school the photograph that Robert Capa took after the end of the Nazi occupation in her hometown, Chartres. "Since I saw it, I've always kept it in mind. It has always intrigued me," she explains. The image shows Simone Touseau, a 23-year-old French woman, with her head shaved and a brand on her forehead made with a hot iron, holding her infant daughter and next to her mother, who had also been shaved. Both were publicly humiliated by an enraptured crowd on August 16, 1944. The photo is a symbol of the savage purge that took place in France after the Allied victory.

Philosopher, essayist and columnist, she teaches philosophy at Sapienza Università di Roma. Donatella Di Cesare (Rome, 1956) has been fighting against the extreme right for years in all areas, including the media and the streets. She is not afraid, even though she had to have police escort due to threats received from fascist and neo-Nazi groups. Among other works, she has published Heidegger y los judíos (2017), Tortura (2018), Terrorismo. Una guerra civil global (2017), Marranos (2019) and Sobre la vocación política de la filosofía (2020), translated into Spanish by Gedisa. In Catalan, she has just published Tecnofeixisme. La suspensió tàcita de la política (Arcàdia). With translation by Coral Romà, the book reflects on how totalitarian forms of government are being imposed worldwide and how the power of the people is being reduced.

Behind the stone walls of the monastery of Pedralbes many generations of women have lived for seven centuries, and many stories have unfolded. We know many things about struggles, fights for survival, talent, and creativity, thanks to documents and stones, but now it is the turn of the dead. Through DNA, tissues, parchments, floral offerings and aromatic plants, and skeletal remains from the tombs, a new chapter is opening. What began as a conservation intervention to commemorate the seventh centenary of the convent (1326-2026) has become a fascinating archaeological and genetic research. A multidisciplinary team has opened eight tombs from the 14th century and found 25 individuals. And the surprises have only just begun.

The Association for the Promotion of the Francesca Bonnemaison Women's Cultural Centre (la Bonne), a meeting, exchange, and creation space for feminist cultural projects that brings together more than a hundred women's collectives, has been fighting with the Diputació de Barcelona for over ten years to continue in the Francesca Bonnemaison building, on Sant Pere Més Baix street in Barcelona. The latest step has been to formally request the reversal of the property from the president of the Diputació, Lluïsa Moret, based on the democratic memory law. The argument is that in 1941, in the midst of the post-war context, a deed of assignment was signed to the Diputació which the association calls a "true spoliation". it has been more than ten years that it has been battling with the Barcelona Provincial CouncilFrancesca Bonnemaison (1872-1949) was a right-wing, Catholic woman from a good family who did something very audacious that still endures today: she created Europe's first women's library, the Popular Library for Women, in 1909. She offered women a place to train, and at that time it was so exceptional that, when the Institute of Culture and Popular Library for Women opened on Sant Pere Més Baix street, the police had to go there because the men, unaccustomed to the presence of women in public spaces, were becoming agitated. The Popular Library for Women was born in the upper cloisters of Santa Anna and was inaugurated on March 28, 1909. Since Bonnemaison had very good relations and knew the Barcelona oligarchy, she secured enough funding to move, in 1910, to number 12 Elisabets street, and in 1920 she acquired a larger premises in Sant Pere Més Baix. From 1922 onwards, the Institute of Culture and Popular Library for Women was located there. Even today, the institution occupies this space, which is the old Casa Cordellas mansion.

Between April and May 1954, one of the most ambitious expeditions of the Ethnological Museum of Barcelona, inaugurated in 1949, was organized in the protectorate of Morocco. The sculptor Eudald Serra, who was part of the expedition, wanted to model a nude bust, but local law and morals made it impossible to find any woman who would pose. Serra did not give up; he simply looked where colonial power was absolute. With the collaboration of the Spanish authorities, he visited prisons, reformatories, and "public houses." The use of sex workers as models was systematic and deliberate in many campaigns, taking advantage of their extreme vulnerability in a context of colonial domination.

Memory is not impartial. There are many silences, invisible people, and biases. Who is remembered and who is not, and why this happens, is a fact that can generate great debates and help imagine new paths, as could be seen this Tuesday at the Pedralbes Monastery. In a new session of the Pedralbes Dialogues, organized in collaboration with ARA and under the intellectual direction of philosopher Daniel Gamper and the moderation of Antoni Bassas, the following question was addressed: Does memory have a gender?