La Colometa lives on in the memory of any reader who is familiar with In Diamond Square, a universally acclaimed work by one of Barcelona’s most international writers, Mercè Rodoreda, who was born into a well-educated and bohemian family. She grew up in C. Pàdua, in the Sant Gervasi de Cassoles neighbourhood, halfway between the boundless worlds of literature and the limited horizons of a well brought-up young girl at the beginning of the 20th century. The pen was her key to an escape from the narrow confines of this reality, and in 1932 she published her first novel, Am I an Honoured Woman? During the years that followed, she wrote short stories, newspaper articles and novels, including Aloma (1938). At the end of the Civil War, she trod the path to exile in France with other intellectuals, not returning until 1972. She lived in Paris, Geneva and Vienna, where she continued to publish: Twenty-two Stories (1958), In Diamond Square (1962), Camellia Street (1966) and Garden by the Sea (1967). At the end of the 1960s her works started to be translated, her fame grew, and was consolidated during the 1970s. In 1974 she published A Broken Mirror, and the years that followed saw the publication of her complete works and screen adaptations of Aloma and In Diamond Square.
An actress, singer and vedette, she managed to enter the field of comedy, which was monopolised by men. She became famous as the ‘Queen of the Paral·lel’ because of her prominent presence at the theatres on that avenue.