A couple of months ago, Raimon turned 85, and now he takes short walks through Barcelona's Raval neighborhood, an image that doesn't quite fit with the one we have of an artist who has always displayed prodigious vocal abilities on stage, those that Josep Pla immortalized with the description, "He exhales, in Valencian Catalan, a phenomenal outburst." The truth is, time marches on. Raimon jokes that he is now "a vulnerable old man, not a venerable one," and his friend, the journalist Miquel Alberola, has just published his biography. Raimon. That me that I am (Ara Llibres), which is being presented tonight at the Ateneu Barcelonès.

"Of the Catalan classics, the most translated is Mercè Rodoreda, then comes Ramon Llull, and the third is Salvador Espriu. It has had and still has a great influence in many places around the world," commented the poet and university professor Jaume Subirana shortly before the round table dedicated to the author of The bull's skin at the University of Barcelona (UB) as part of the third Salvador Espriu International Symposium, held at the UB, Pompeu Fabra University, and the Autonomous University. Participating were poet and editor Ramon Balasch and two singer-songwriters, Raimon and Pau Alabajos, moderated by one of the driving forces behind the academic event, Professor Maria Moreno i Domènech.