"What grace and what freshness, what naturalness, in her stories!", he wrote in 1958, in Mercè Rodoreda, an almost nonagenarian Victor Catalan, the pseudonym under which Caterina Albert (l'Escala, 1869-1966) signed all her books. The author of Loneliness had been impressed by Twenty-two stories, which Rodoreda had published after a two-decade hiatus in publishing. "Too often, some who claim to write in Catalan use such a fantastical vocabulary and construction that, when I come across language as natural and authentic as yours, it feels like a major celebration," he insists. "How charming and fresh your stories are!" he said.