The victory of Spanish fascism in the civil war, the consequent Francoist dictatorship, and the continuity that, on identity and linguistic-cultural issues, has been given from so-called democratic institutions to Spanish nationalism with Francoist echoes, make it so that when we read the books and review the figure and life trajectory of Avel·lí Artís Gener “Tísner” or Vicenç Riera Llorca (Barcelona, 1903–Pineda de Mar, 1991) they seem to us of heroic and purest radicalism and coherence. Is it because we have put them on a pedestal or because we have objectively let ourselves be lowered?A staunch Catalanist and socialist of popular extraction and republican convictions, Riera Llorca, who declared himself a Catalan nationalist and therefore (not despite it: therefore) also an internationalist, made his name as a writer in the rich breeding ground of Catalan journalism during the years of the Republic. A polyglot and voracious reader, he dedicated himself to trade unionism and went to fight voluntarily at the front. After the republican defeat and the military occupation of Catalonia, Riera Llorca fled to France, where he was interned twice in concentration camps, from which he escaped both times. From there, he managed to flee to the Dominican Republic, and then to Mexico, where he co-founded and directed the most mythical and fertile exile magazine, Pont blau. He returned to Catalonia in 1969. The country had been deformed, Riera Llorca had not, and he continued to defend the same ideas he had before he had to leave. I have extracted this information from the very interesting study Vicenç Riera Llorca. Exile, memory and the working class, by Albert Ventura (Publicacions Universitat Rovira i Virgili).A chaotic, indolent and precarious world

The best-known title by Riera Llorca, Tots tres surten per l’Ozama, published in Mexico in 1946, now reissued by Club Editor, is a testimonial novel, between historical chronicle, journalistic reportage and expressively frontal and refined narration, about the experience of Catalan exile in the Dominican Republic of dictator Trujillo. Applying tones, perspectives, and technical lessons learned from reading the Americans Hemingway and Dos Passos, then very popular, Riera Llorca offers an exhaustive panorama, full of ellipses and not at all prolix but socio-anthropologically incisive, colorful and insightful, of a world marked by material misery, political corruption, racial prejudice, and passionate sensuality. It is a chaotic, static, indolent and precarious world that suddenly has to manage the arrival of many thousands of immigrants (Catalans, Spaniards, Jews, Italians...) from a Europe at war, and in which the three Catalan protagonists – Ramon, intellectual but worldly; Miquel, steadfast idealist; Lluís, conceited, boastful, soft – barely make a living doing jobs and little jobs, cohabiting with natives and other exiles, and thinking little or not at all about the past and all that they have left behind.Riera Llorca's literary operation, consisting in documenting from fiction – therefore, recreating not from literalness but from imagination – a concrete human experience in a specific historical period and territorial framework, still proves modern and lucid today. This is so because formally the novel has not become outdated and because the gallery of human types that parades through it is vivid and convincing, even in the cases of secondary and schematic characters.With a style that combines naturalist narration and reportage – vividness, drama, and symbolic power, but also detachment, clarity of style, and a desire for objectivity, as if everything were seen through the lens of a camera, although from time to time the narrator lets slip a judgmental adjective–, Tots tres surten per l’Ozama is a valuable work for literary, politico-historical, and human reasons. An important book.

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"Clementina Arderiu Voltas is surely one of the Catalan writers who has had the easiest and most difficult time leaving a work in the history of Catalan literature". With this forceful statement begins the profile that Marta Pessarrodona outlined the poet in the volume Donasses. Protagonists of modern Catalonia (Destination, 2006). Now that the fiftieth anniversary of Arderiu's death is being celebrated, it is worth asking what the reasons are for this contradictory situation – in the light and in the shadow at the same time – and trying to correct the wrong that has been done to his work, on which reductive judgments have weighed, for social and biographical reasons.

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Guillem Agulló was an 18-year-old Valencian nationalist, anti-fascist, and independentist who was murdered by a gang of Nazis in April 1993 in Montanejos (Alt Millars). His only crime was being known for his ideas by his murderer, Pedro Cuevas. Cuevas stabbed him in the heart. Death was almost instantaneous. The murderer and his gang left the scene singing the Cara al sol. This detail is important because, in the subsequent trial, a witness was forced to sing the well-known fascist anthem, theoretically to prove that it identified him correctly. It is just one of the many surreal elements present in the whole affair.And it is that the crime against Agulló opened the doors to an unspeakable process that masked the facts, excused the assassins and criminalized the Valencian nationalist and anti-fascist movement. All this is what the professor, writer and musician Rafa Xambó has been patiently investigating the professor, writer and musician Rafa Xambó for four long years. The result of this research is The murder of Guillem: lies, fascists and robes, a huge volume of more than 400 pages, with dense lettering, which explains how the Montanejos crime was treated in the precarious and colonized Valencian media ecosystem and what the judicial outcome of all this was.This volume is the culmination of a series of initiatives of different types that have kept the case hot over the last decades. I am talking about the novel Guillem, by Núria Cadenes (Amsterdam Llibres, 2020) or the film La mort de Guillem, by Carlos Marqués-Marcet (2020). This latter title was broadcast by the televisions of Catalonia, Valencian Country, and the Balearic Islands, and achieved figures of more than 600,000 viewers in total.Xambó, however, does not fictionalize. His has been a work of newspaper archives and of looking closely at the judicial summary. His conclusions are unassailable: after the crime, the main local newspaper, Las Provincias, launched a brutal campaign to excuse the assassins, attributing it all to a “youth brawl” (sic). The other media outlets (including Canal 9) also played an incomplete and unprofessional role, but the newspaper from the capital city took the prize.The end of a convulsive transition in the Valencian Country

For those who do not know the history of Las Provincias, it will be necessary to explain that the newspaper founded in 1866 by Teodor Llorente (patriarch of the Valencian Renaixença) was the main agent, since 1979, for the promotion of anti-Catalanism in Valencia and the criminalization of nationalism. Agulló's episode, in reality, was the cherry on a rotten cake that had been poisoning Valencian society for twenty years. At its head, the sadly famous María Consuelo Reyna.In reality, the stab in the heart against Guillem Agulló represents, in a way, the end of the convulsive Transition in the Valencian Country. A period of unpunished crimes (the bombings of Joan Fuster and other intellectuals, aggressions against democratic authorities...) which Xambó takes care to recall so that we are not at all surprised by the ridiculous conviction of Pedro Cuevas with which the trial that took place in Castelló de la Plana was settled.As a sardonic epilogue to this story, it will be necessary to note what Pedro Cuevas did – the kid who claims he killed Agulló for esoteric, juvenile, and testosteronic reasons – after serving the four years in prison to which he was sentenced. He immediately joined the FAS (Antisystem Front) and was implicated in Operation Panzer. In this raid, the Civil Guard dismantled a neo-Nazi cell with weapons and propaganda that was dedicated to the hunt for anti-fascists and immigrants.This is how history is written, undoubtedly...

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"In this solitary environment, in this infinite desert today populated by men of all the world's lineages, we Catalans also arrive, in the thousands (...) We leave Barcelona without being aware of what we are leaving or what we will find upon arrival... and the arrival at the great city of La Plata is sad... for the emigrant." These words summarize the deep longing felt, for years, by Enric Martí i Muntaner (Vilanova i la Geltrú, 1889-Buenos Aires, 1954): although he left for Argentina at the beginning of the 20th century with the aim of making his fortune, he only managed to survive in the middle of the Pampa for almost three decades, and guided by love for his country – and, above all, for his language – he undertook the verse translation of an emblematic poem by José Hernández, Martín Fierro (1872), which he managed to publish in 1936, after several vicissitudes.

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The life of the economist, politician, and writer Antoni Vives (Barcelona, 1965) took a radical turn when, in 2018, he landed in Saudi Arabia to meet with the country's prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and the team with which he was preparing Vision 2030, which was to translate into the urbanization of a region in the middle of the desert "the size of Belgium" called Neom – which integrates the words new and future– to build "a city designed for nine million inhabitants" in the middle of the desert. He has now decided to explain the seven years he spent leading that mammoth project in a memoir literary and very interesting, In the secret country (Pòrtic, 2026), which does not hide the contradictions of an absolute monarchy guided by Sharia, capable of having a journalist critical of the regime murdered and dismembered as Jamal Khashoggi and which, at the same time, has the aspiration to modernize itself. Vives's own trajectory will surprise more than one reader. In addition to winning the Crexells prize with Farringdon Road's Dream (La Magrana, 2011) and the Bookseller with And tomorrow, paradise (RBA, 2014), has been deputy mayor for Urbanism between 2011 and 2015 at Barcelona City Council —during Xavier Trias's last term— and in 2022 was sentenced to two years in prison, settled with a compensation of 155,000 euros, for irregular contracting of the then mayor of Santa Coloma de Cervelló, Jesús Arévalo, by the entity Barcelona Regional, which Vives had chaired.

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Up to now, and for almost thirty years, we have known Josep Pedrals (Barcelona, 1979) as a poet, a performer, a lecturer, and a cultural manager. With Poeticismes (Arcàdia, 2026), he debuts as an essayist with the same combination of pleasantness, erudition, and humor that abounds in his verses. In the catch-all drawer that is Pedrals' new book, we find reflections on emperors buried in honey or on the monument to Jacint Verdaguer on Passeig de Sant Joan, chronicles of some of the thousands of recitals in which he has participated around the world —like the one that took him to Macedonia accompanied by Adam Zagajewski—, vindications of authors less known to readers than they should be, and a wealth of curious technical speculations on poetry writing, one of his great passions, along with omnivorous reading and a love for the stage.

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The Fundació Prudenci Bertrana has made public the four literary awards it presents annually: the Prudenci Bertrana novel award has gone to Fer cantar els arbres, by Jordi Campoy; the Miquel de Palol poetry award to Horografia, by Joan Tomàs Martínez Grimalt; the Carles Rahola essay award to Terra de Quixots, by Joan Manuel Soldevilla, and the Ramon Muntaner youth novel award, finally, has been won by La fuga, by Laia Aguilar.

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"Like a happy castaway, / in October twenty-six, / the thirtieth day, Ramon arrives in the world, / in Barcelona. / Without making much fuss. He is the ninth child". This is how the ballad dedicated by Joan Vilamala to Ramon Folch i Camarasa (1926-2019) begins, one of the key authors of the literary revival in Catalan that started in the late 1950s, alongside Manuel de Pedrolo, Maria Aurèlia Capmany, and Josep Maria Espinàs.

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For decades, Biel Mesquida (Castelló de la Plana, 1947) has been inviting readers to delve into all the nuances of the "censored perfume" of freedom, whether sexual or political. On the evening he received the 58th Premi d'Honor de les Lletres Catalanes, the verses of Lluita de classes, one of the agile and radiant poems from El bell país on els homes desitgen els homes –written in 1974 but unpublished until 1985–, once again resonated at the Palau de la Música with the elegant diction of the poet Adrià Targa. "You are a creature, fierce creature, playing with my hips, / biting them, while I knelt, pushed and compelled by your frenzy and / this desire to sink into the beautiful hole of my anus": thus, the urgent connection between the lyrical self and the "disheveled boy" of the commissions still sounds forcefully, an oasis of free love amidst the national-Catholic and Francoist darkness.

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It seems to us that we are reading an entertaining novel, with a young character, in his twenties, and without a penny in his pocket, who goes with a lily in his hand and doesn't stop walking (especially due to lack of money): what has always been called a coming-of-age novel or apprenticeship novel. In reality, however, it is an ambitious chronicle, with some episodes with a lot of spice, starring this passionate pilgrim (godless) who decided to risk everything on the gamble of becoming a poet-writer. An admirer of Fyodor M. Dostoevsky and Friedrich Nietzsche, from whom he draws much inspiration, and of William Shakespeare and François Villon. Born in La Selva del Camp in 1882, a bastard son, repudiated by his father (which will mark him deeply), self-taught, often scorned for his lack of academic culture. Of a timid disposition (“The old timidity of the Ferreters put into the blood”). For this reason, despite loving books madly, the protagonist – the author himself, Puig i Ferreter, with no additions – advocates, convinced, for lived culture before learned culture: “This is how I have always used reality to turn it into art. Not by hunting for documents with a notebook in hand, but by taking advantage of the ‘things’ I have lived or that have impressed me deeply and have remained within me with all their colors, in that depth of human experience which, transposed by imagination and fantasy, is the vital treasure of the artist”.

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Colm Tóibín (Enniscorthy, 1955), to be able to say his piece about Mercè Rodoreda –an author he has been reading for decades–, has found a gap in his extremely tight schedule and has crossed the Atlantic Ocean from Los Angeles. The author of novels such as Brooklyn and The Magician –both in Catalan from the Amsterdam publishing house– has been the last guest of the exhibitionRodoreda, a forest, which closed its doors a few days ago at the CCCB. 81,880 people have visited it since December, a milestone that has made it the seventh most visited exhibition in the history of the Barcelona venue and the most successful one focused on literature, surpassing those programmed for Claudio Magris, Salvador Espriu and W.G. Sebald.

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Although she hasn't lost hope of becoming a "skater, pianist, dancer, and screenwriter for Larry David," Marta Pasqual (Girona, 1983) combines teaching in secondary school, where she teaches French literature, with writing novels as interesting as L'àngel que em mira (Empúries, 2026), the third she has published since debuting in fiction with El malaventurat senyor Clauss (Empúries, 2022). After winning the Just M. Casero prize with La casa dels caps de setmana (Empúries, 2023), Pasqual presents a story centered on a 60-year-old family man, Isaac, who suffers a domestic accident that leaves him in a coma. This starting point allows the author to combine the account of this decisive moment in the protagonist's life with the flood of memories, both good and painful, that visit him during his convalescence.

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The reading of Els erms is electric: you have to applaud the skill of Chance brings them together in a remote and somewhat unpleasant place, the inn next to the Sau dam. The chosen location is ideal and well described: the stale and decadent decoration, the fog that envelops everything and turns the hotel into an airtight chamber, the almost empty reservoir: everything contributes to creating the oppressive atmosphere of imminent tragedy that serves as a perfect backdrop for the story of Ramona Ra, a podcasting sociologist and columnist with a bit of imposter syndrome, who has doubts about the relationship she has with an English girlfriend. In addition, she has to write a lecture and, what is worse, she has signed a contract to write an essay that she has no desire to undertake. It is Christmas Eve and there is a sister with a family who is calling for her, but Ramona prefers to hit the road and isolate herself from a world she judges harshly.

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This book —which takes its title from a poem by Joan Vinyoli, a friend of Feliu Formosa— discreetly, yet profoundly, celebrates life. Although it reflects on death and absence, on loss and pain, life weighs more heavily. The poet manages the emotion with which he presents each of the pretexts used to elucidate the theme very well. “Love, desire and dream”, begins poem XXIV, which deals with a love affair. At ninety years old, existence becomes more peremptory than ever, but, as many verses demonstrate, also fully in love. “I never know if I say everything”: one never finishes saying everything, but here Formosa says many things (and, when he doesn't, he suggests them). Memories, desires, impressions. And he inventories many ideas. A very suggestive one is that “to live is to translate / and to translate is to live”.

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Although she has to use crutches due to a recent fall, Marta Pessarrodona (Terrassa, 1941) retains the energy and enthusiasm that have accompanied her for decades. She opens the door to her home in Valldoreix once again to ARA for a double reason: she has been chosen as the opening speaker for the new edition of the Barcelona Poesia festival, which takes place from May 14 to 21, and she is presenting a new poetry book, Re(visions), which is about to hit bookstores. Published by Viena five years after Tot m'admira (2021), it revisits the author's family members, friends, and loves, including her last dog, Queta, who died in an accident just over a year ago.

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It has been twenty years since Jordi Llavina (Gelida, 1968) debuted as a poet with La corda del gronxador (Moll, 2006). The author celebrates the anniversary by selecting his work in verse in El test de la flor malva, published by Pagès: the volume, 200 pages long and with a prologue by Pere Ballart, collects a representative sample of the ten poetry books he has published so far, including Vetlla (3i4, 2012), El magraner (Cossetània, 2020) and Un llum que crema (Proa, 2023).

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Just after finishing the reading of Venus i els bàrbars, we could imagine a book club with the members of Revolta Pagesa and councilor Ordeig as moderator, passionately debating this matter of the "barbarians". It is not difficult to believe that such a scene would have delighted the author, always diligent in shaking consciences and provoking lively disputes. Cap de Brot Publishing House has had the courage and the foresight to recover another author from the waters of oblivion. It is, no more and no less, Lluís Capdevila i Vilallonga (Barcelona, 1893-Andorra la Vella, 1980), a picturesque, unclassifiable literary figure. And it does so with an impeccable edition, rounded off by a prologue by Agnès Rotger that aptly accompanies the return of this sidelined voice.

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I read that the group Fetus, formed by Adrià Cortadellas, Telm Terradas and Adrià Jiménez, with Carles Belda and Joan Colomo (as producer), are releasing a – to put it in the manner of DJs – “new work”. At l’ARA, where we read that they dedicate their minstrelsy art to issues like the PSC, Aliança Catalana and Rodalies, they say this: "On this album they have called us chroniclers and we agree. In the end, it is all an exercise in understanding the ballad as a predecessor of the press and wanting to claim and reinterpret it as a genre that often has a certain objectivity, but the mere fact of singing it is already a political act in itself".

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Carles Fenollosa (València, 1989) has been one of the literary surprises of the season. After debuting with Narcís o l'onanisme (Premi Lletraferit 2018) and writing several essays, the latest of which was La modernitat frustrada (Premi València, 2025), he published his second novel a few months ago, Guerra, victòria, demà (Drassana, 2025), one of the best of 2025 according to and a finalist for the Premi Òmnium.The book's action takes place during the Valencia of the Republic, the Civil War, and exile, following the life of Jesús Martorell, a committed doctor, to Paris, Naples, Dachau, and Buenos Aires.Your first novel, Narcís o l’onanisme

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The concern for what can (still) be said is at the heart of this beautiful book, winner of the latest edition of the Carles Riba prize –the first held on a new date–. Let's look at the poem that opens the proceedings, Picking Cherries. The pretext, like most of the pretexts in the poetry of Jaume Coll Mariné (how welcome that is!), comes from country life, from a family coexistence with nature: in this case, a ladder propped against the trunk of a cherry tree, which has remained there after the harvest, done months before. That ladder, which at an inopportune time no longer serves any purpose, “I wish it would mean something.” Perhaps like poetry. Further on, we find a poem of a more ideological nature –which, in the final notes, the author acknowledges as “an attempt to read some of the ways of doing of [Pere] Gimferrer.” It repeats the verse five times: “We no longer know what to call it.” And it is done to insist on all that is falling apart for us: “Nothing is more rotten today / than walking with the name of Spain”; and, a few verses later: “All of Catalonia is a shell / a cracked husk / Nothing is more rotten today.”

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