Writers and Barcelona
Barcelona has been and keeps being a perfect scene for literary works, a source of inspiration for writers who were born here and a welcoming place for writers from around the world who have described it in their books.
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Sergi PÀMIES
(París, 1960)
Writer and translator. Meanwhile, during the nineties the trend among all the writers in the city was to write a major novel on Barcelona, so Pàmies, with his grand sense of humour, decided to publish La gran novel·la sobre Barcelona (1997), a collection of fifteen urban stories on love, perplexity, and death. He won the Serra d’Or Critics Award. The city is forever present in the articles and stories he published subsequently, such as Si menges una llimona sense fer ganyotes or La bicicleta estàtica. He is the son of the writer Teresa Pàmies and politician Gregori López Raimundo.
Francesc PARCERISAS
(Begues, 1944)
Poet and translator. He was considered to have “trained in the city, if the Barcelona at the end of the forties with herds of sheep obstructing the tram lines, rubbish cars and the smell of boiled cabbage could be considered a city as such in the same way we now understand the word.” He has a PhD in Theory of Translation, he has translated some thirty books, and considers translation to be a unique art. He wrote around fifteen poems evoking the physical reality of the city and follows in the same line of poetry that Salvat-Papasseit began in the sixties.
Marc PASTOR
(Barcelona, 1977)
Criminologist. He faught the nazis in Montecristo (2011) and drawed the criminal profile of the "Vampire from Barcelona" in La mala dona (2008), which won the noir novel award Crims de Tinta. With L’any de la plaga (2010) he alerted about an inminent invasion of body snatchers and with Bioko (2013) he revealed a new way to travel in time. Farishta (2017) is a fantastic thriller. Even if they can be read separately, his fictions do complement and configurate a unique universe. He has been translated to a dozen languages, such as english, german, korean, turkish, check or hungarian. He works for the scientifical police corps.
Josep PEDRALS
(Barcelona, 1979)
Poet and rhapsodist. He is a regular on the city's poetry scene. He often frequents the Horiginal or the Heliogàbal, and is linked to different music and arts projects in the city. He won the Lletra d’Or Award for Romanço d’Anna Tirant”and was one of the first authors to have his work published by Labreu Edicions, which in just a few years became one of the most prestigious small publishing houses. His work is centred primarily on humour, surrealism, and courtly love. He signed the generational manifest together with Melcior Comes, Pere Antoni Pons and Jordi Rourera on “Qui no mereix una pallissa?” [Who doesn't deserve a good hiding?].
Manuel de PEDROLO
(L’Aranyó, 1918 – Barcelona, 1990)
Writer. One of the most prolific authors of Catalan literature. All of his work is published in Barcelona, the city he moved to in 1935 to finish his Baccalaureate . After a period spent in Valladolid where he began to write, in 1946 he settled for good in Barcelona where he set his crime novel Joc brut, published in the collection by Edicions 62 La Cua de palla. Some of the scenes he uses to portray the city include La Diagonal and Plaça Gal·la Placídia.
Javier PÉREZ ANDÚJAR
(Sant Adrià de Besòs, 1965)
He is a chronicler with a critical slant on the city, portrayed from the so-called periphery. He won the City of Barcelona Award for his articles in newspaper El País , and wrote several novels set in Barcelona such as Catalanes todos (2002, republished in 2014) in which he depicts the city the day Franco’s troops entered the city through La Diagonal. In Paseos con mi madre (2012) he portrays the development of the city suburbs over the last forty years.
Lluís PERMANYER
(Barcelona, 1939)
Catalan essayist and journalist. He is one of the illustrious chroniclers of the city of Barcelona and has been writing for La Vanguardia newspaper since 1966. He is author of some twenty works of which Barcelona is focal point or forms the backdrop. His work includes 1000 testimonis de Barcelona and Un amor a l’ombra de pedra blava.
Joan PERUCHO
(Barcelona, 1920 – 2003)
Poet, novelist, art critic, and columnist. He is one of the most original writers of the second half of the twentieth century, who effectively combined scholarship with avant-garde experimentation. Barcelona is always the start and the finish of the chivalrous journeys packed with fantasy and humour in his novels, such as the one dedicated to the Baron of Maldà or Les històries naturals, one of the few Catalan novels included in Harold Bloom’s universal literary canon.
Sergio PITOL
(Puebla, 1933)
Writer, translator, and diplomat. Most prominent as an human rights activist and renowned for his elegant and eclectic prose, positioning him as one of the first post-modernism writers. Winner of the Cervantes Award and the National Award of Mexico among others, having published some thirty novels and works of fiction. He lived in Barcelona for three years (1969-1973) where he was a translator for publishing houses such as Seix Barral, Tusquests and Anagrama -publisher of his work. He was part of the so-called Latin American boom and became great friends with Cristina Fernández Cubas and Enrique Vila-Matas.
Josep PLA
(Palafrugell, 1897 – Llofriu, 1981)
Writer and journalist. One of the most renowned authors of twentieth century Catalan literature. He spent his childhood years in Barcelona until the beginning of the war; a time that inspired his work El quadern gris and some of his most famous stories on the figures of the thirties portrayed in Homenots and also in Barcelona. Papers d’un estudiant –winner of the 1957 Lletra d’Or Award–, Un senyor de Barcelona, Barcelona una discussió entranyable, Un mort a Barcelona. The city has named streets, schools and institutes after him. Publishing house Edicions 62 has been awarding the Josep Pla literature prize since 1968.