Mercè Rodoreda - Catalan womanhood

b. Barcelona, 1909 - d. Girona, 1983

 
Writer. She began her literary activity at an early age with contributions to newspapers and magazines ("Mirador", "La Rambla", "La Publicitat", etc.) and psychological novels, such as Sóc una dona honrada? (Am I an Honourable Woman?), 1932; Del que hom no pot fugir (What You Cannot Flee From), 1934; Un dia de la vida d'un home (A Day in the Life of a Man), 1934; and Crim (Crime), 1936), a style of work that she later rejected, with the exception of Aloma (1938, 1937 Crexells award), an extremely successful novel. This work already showed elements that would remain constant throughout her literary production. The subject is woman-centred, with a girl protagonist, and action focusing on romantic relationships, expressed both poetically and simbolically. Her career was interupted by the 1936-39 Civil War, and at the end of the war she went into exile (Paris, Bordeaux and Geneva). She took part in the Jocs Florals de la Llengua Catalana (popular poetry competitions) and she was named mestra en gai saber (master of the art of poetry) in 1949. Her first work in exile, Vint-i-dos contes (22 Tales) (Víctor Català award, 1957), was not published until 1958. It represented a logical moment of crisis in her production. After getting over the crisis, she wrote the key piece of her narrative,

La plaça del Diamant (The Pigeon Girl) (1962), a novel that was psychological, historical and symbolical at the same time. Later, she wrote El carrer de les Camèlies (Camellia Street) (1966), Sant Jordi award, which is a clear rejection of her previous work, and Jardí vora el mar (A Garden next to the Sea) (1967). However, if all these novels can be called realist, with La meva Cristina i altres contes (My Cristina and Other Tales) (1967) she evolved towards a fantastical or mythical narrative. This work is clearly within a world of mythical roots which had only been hinted at in earlier works. Her evolution was clearly from clarification to mystification. Mirall trencat (Broken Mirror) (1974) is the culmination of this evolution, as it is still a psychological novel, but already mythical, in which the main characters of this great roman fresque reach immortality. In 1979, she wrote Tots els contes (All the Tales), which included the collection Semblava de seda i altres contes (It Seemed like Silk and Other Tales) (1978), and in 1980 the prose works Viatges i flors, (Journeys and Flowers) won the Crítica Serra d'Or and Ciutat de Barcelona awards. Her later novel, Quanta, quanta guerra... (How Much, How Much War..) (1980), Crítica Serra d'Or award, accentuated the mythical and symbolist nature of her work even further. Two more novels were published posthumously. First was the unfinished La mort i la primavera (Death and Spring) (1986), also Crítica Serra d'Or award, where the writer reflects her entire inner universe. It is a work full of unconscious symbols and possesses a very rich language. In 1991, Isabel i Maria (Isabel and Maria) was published. In 1980 she was awarded the Premi d'Honor de les Lletres Catalanes.