Maria Verger was stigmatized for being free and a leftist. Teresa Pàmies, Mercè Rodoreda, Aurora Bertrana, and Teresa Juvé survived exile by working as domestic servants. Dolors Orriols was denied a press card because, according to the regime, she had to care for her son and husband. Assumpció Soler's life was made impossible for her being a single mother. Joana Raspall was expelled from the library corps. Elvira Augusta Lewi disappeared.

Rosita, the novel with which Pep Prieto has just been proclaimed winner of the 58th Prudenci Bertrana Prize —worth 30,000 euros— is a "tender and overwhelming story about the childhood of a boy in Girona in the eighties who looks at life as if it were a film to understand what hides behind fear, the jury, made up of Montse Barderi, Gemma Lienas, Gerard Quintana, Care Santos and Gloria Gasch.

The title I have given to this article includes the phrase "time ago", which was the title of Ramon Solsona's magnificent novel published in 2022 –for me, one of the most consistent Catalan novels of recent decades. A series of unfortunate circumstances meant that this prodigious work didn't receive the recognition it deserved.

Ramon Solsona (Barcelona, ​​​​1950) explains that, as he gets older, he increasingly wants to remember. "We all tend to keep the good memories. With age, we want to look back in a serene, even indulgent way, devoid of acidity," stresses the writer of novels such as The hours stopped (1993) and The man with the suitcase (2011). This exercise with the past feeds the latest book, Chocolate street (Proa), a story made up of his memories and those of his brothers during childhood and youth. "The times were not great, and in fact I do not forgive Francoism at all, but I have written a pleasant and fun book because I wanted to remember what made me happy," says Solsona.