We writers are invited, around Sant Jordi, to talk about the paper-paste article that we have had the joy and audacity to create. “I haven't finished the book”, Basté told me, apologizing. I know authors who get offended or upset if the journalist hasn't read them. But does the journalist need to have read a book, seen a movie, listened to a record, or gone to a restaurant to interview the author? It seems to me that it's not necessary. That, sometimes, it is, perhaps, desirable. Cultural journalists often make this joke: “We are eternal readers of half a book”. Tomorrow they will have another one, and the day after tomorrow another one. Books should be enjoyed calmly (without eternity) and abandoned if necessary, because sometimes it's necessary, like series. The journalist's questions don't necessarily have to be about the plot. It seems to me that an interview with Melville (I love Melville) shouldn't be about cetaceans, even though, of course, on a day like today we would ask him about that extraordinary video we saw on ARA, which shows that whales, my goodness, help each other to give birth. Interviews are advertisements, and it doesn't matter if the author talks about their childhood or what they think of Donald Trump.

Antoni Marí, a powerful figure in Catalan literature, a penetrating and refined writer of both verse and prose, has died. Born in Ibiza and a Barcelonan by choice and conviction, Marí always gloriously followed his own path, dedicated to the task of deeply understanding the ideas that have allowed for the construction of modern Europe and verifying their validity in the ongoing construction of today's Europe. He had more dealings with abstract thought, and far more fruitful ones, than many of those who today sign their names and proclaim themselves philosophers with ridiculous shamelessness.

I've only seen David Uclés once, on the day of this year's Nadal Prize ceremony. When he gave his acceptance speech, I found that he spoke like no one I've ever heard anyone speak, that he expressed himself in a way as singular as his attire. Something unusual in our field: we're all quite original. When I was young, I used to say that I only wanted to be a "normal" writer, until, after meeting many colleagues, I realized that "normal" writers don't exist. There are mediocre ones, of course: the efficient mercenaries of the written word who churn out a book every year and produce novels like they're churning out sausages. I don't consider these writers—you'll have to forgive my professional purism, but I say this more as a reader than a writer. When I read, I want access to a consciousness, a world, a perspective on life, and an artistic work created with words and with the pieces and mechanisms inherent to literature. If I want to be entertained by stories told in a flat, soulless style, I already have afternoon soap operas. Anyway, I don't want to talk about books, since I haven't read either of the two novels Uclés has published; I want to talk about writers, the press, and all that part of the work we usually call "promotion."

Fame was not viewed negatively in the centuries of the classical cultures of Greece and Rome – anyone will read that. Aurea dicta, like the one that was published in the Bernat, Doctor—but it began to be viewed with suspicion from the Renaissance onward. Erasmus and Montaigne, from the final period of humanism, did not appreciate it. Perhaps the phenomenon has to do with the fact that the printing press had made books available to many readers: quantity makes more noise than quality.

We like to emphasize the fact that Pere Rovira is an excellent writer, undoubtedly one of the best writing in Catalan today. He recently published, with the Proa publishing house, the volume Life and Illusions, a new installment of his diaries, which include milestones of autobiographical literature such as Daily without days (2004), Vermeer's Window (2016) and Music and pulse (2019). Rovira is also an excellent poet, as evidenced in the volume of his collected poems. Today is always (2022), and in each of his books of verse, which he composes slowly, at intervals. One must also read the two novels he has published so far (Crazy love, from 2007, and The Father's Wars(from 2013). And his translations from French are a joy: Ronsard (Ronsard's Roses), 2009), Baudelaire (The Flowers of Evil, 2021) or the anthology French garden. From Villon to Rimbaud (2016). Without prejudice to the work, let's say youth (the books of poems collected in the volume Poetry 1979-2004)It can be said that the best of Pere Rovira's writing, born in 1947, has been known since his fifties.

Any friend of literature who, when reading, focuses primarily on the aesthetic quality of a book, its style, or its prose, has a problem of conscience when he takes up the work of a first-class writer who openly praised, or had dealings with, a despotic regime like Italian Fascism. From Annunzio, a close friend of Mussolini, in Germany he goes on to Martin Heidegger and several others;

It's a perfect trap. The scam of all scams. It consists of sending an email to a writer proposing a fun job, which also happens to be (somewhat) remunerated. Suggest writing a short story about a railroad, because it will be part of a campaign to promote public transportation. If you offer them 300 euros, they'll say yes, delighted. And from there, it's yours!