Exploring Catalan Literature - Part Eight (Conclusion): To See The Wood For The Trees

The birth of ‘Modern’ Catalan literature was explored in Part Three of our series, taking the 1970s onwards as its semi-permeable delineation. Once again, the focal point of our concluding episode is Contemporary Catalan literature per se. We have previously heard the thoughts of a leading literary translator, and a trailblazing independent press, and now turn to those of two hugely admired contemporary authors, Bel Olid and Adrià Pujol.

To cast one’s eye over the work forming the creative corpus of the Catalan contemporary scene reveals the most verdant of literary gardens, boasting a plethora of innovative voices. From Pere Calders, Jordí Puntí, Borja Baguyà and Edgar Cantero, to the likes of Victor Garcí, Sebastà Jovani and Jordi Nopca, there is no dearth of authorial talent. The same may be said for contemporary poetry, with several collections standing out, including those of Jaume Coll Mariné, Misael Alerm Pou, Marc Rovira, Josep Checa and Blanca Llum Vidal.

With the aid of both Bel and Adrià, I wanted to figuratively, see the wood for the trees and to hear first hand from two apposite witnesses, both creatively rooted in this densely planted literary forest.

cq[Exciting voices are emerging in Catalan in every possible genre. Whatever you enjoy reading, you’ll find it in Catalan.]

Bel Olid, born in 1977, is a leading Catalan writer, literary translator and has published books in Catalan and in translation from English, Italian, German and French. They were winner of the Premi QWERTY, BLlengua Catalana in 2015 and served as President of the European Council of Literary Translator’s Associations from 2013-2015. Essayist, short-form writer and novelist, Bel’s work has been instrumental in raising the profile of queer and LGBT literature in Catalan, dramatically shifting the dial over the last decade and inspiring fellow creatives to write without fear, or constraint.

Olid’s short story collection, Wilder Winds, deftly translated by Laura McGloughlin, brilliantly explores the notions of oppression and individual freedom, ingrained social violence, sexual desire, and the lived experience of those on the outskirts of often turbulent, patriarchal and invidiously intolerant societies. Its visceral, jarring stories offer ugly truths, but also give us uplifting moments of irrepressibly redemptive hope, despite the ineluctable talons of personal trauma piercing the emotional hinterland of Olid’s assiduously nuanced protagonists.

Hairless is the latest offering in an eclectic oeuvre, a consciously accessible social sciences essay addressing the decision to depilate or not, as both a personal and political concern taking in the deleterious evils of gender inequality, oppressively perseverating patriarchy, and freedom of expression. Like Olid, it’s acutely intelligent, witty, and unflinchingly authentic.

As the first of the two contemporary authors I turned to in a bid to understand the contemporary Catalan literary scene, I asked Olid to provide an overview and share with me a selection of arresting authorial voices attracting deserved acclaim and attention:

“Exciting voices are emerging in Catalan in every possible genre. Whatever you enjoy reading, you’ll find it in Catalan. Not only written by Catalan authors, but also in translation, which is no small feat for a language spoken by roughly ten million people.

I really enjoy poetry by young(ish) authors. Maria Sevilla, Pol Guasch or Mireia Calafell are some of my favourites. They are breaking new ground while distinctly following a well-established tradition and hearing them perform their poems is certainly a treat. I’m also very excited about the international success of Eva Baltasar and Irene Solà, who have extremely different voices, but at the same time capture the obsessions of our people today.”

Given the indisputable linguistic barriers presented to an Anglophone audience when engaging with Catalan literature, and the perhaps febrile, yet insular nature of the community characterizing the contemporary scene, I wanted to understand the significance of literary translation for Bel –

“The Catalan literary world is pretty small; we know each other, and people can be really mean for personal reasons or, on the other hand, praise you only because they think it’ll benefit them in some way. When your work is translated and well-received in other languages, as mine has been, it can feel like ‘proof’ that you’re doing something worth reading. I also appreciate being translated into languages like Lithuanian, Maya or Galician, it means a lot to me that people in other cultures feel like my work is worth reading.”

It would be both reductive and facile to suggest that Bel is following in the hallowed footsteps of Victor Català (Caterinà Albert), or Mercé Rodoreda. Such a lazy extrapolation falls short of celebrating inspired, non-mimetic originality. Bel Olid’s unconventional choice of subject matter, together with the marked shift away from a normative, androcentric point of view mired in gender stereotypes ensures that the work is always fresh, if frequently brutal. Bel’s work struck me as being an attempt to dismantle ideological falsehoods; to authentically seek personal and universal truths:

“I write what I cannot help writing, as a way to explore topics and understand the world and myself. I’m interested in characters who fall outside the norm, and most of my work deals with violence, failed attempts at humans communicating with one another, and sometimes hope that we can find joy in living. Recently I have been writing about non-binary characters, in an attempt to explore my own gender identity and the boundaries of norms.”

I watched Bel being interviewed for the Santa Jordi USA literary festival in Chicago last month. Doing so catalyzed a desire to understand the evident passion undergirding an insatiable urge to encourage an Anglophone readership to engage with contemporary Catalan literature:

"I just taught a course on Contemporary Queer Catalan Literature at the University of Chicago and my students were really impacted by most of what we read. I’d say find a topic you enjoy, see what Catalan authors who tackle that topic have been translated into your language, and give it a go. Worst case scenario, you don’t finish the book. But a whole new world of literature could be opening up to you! That’s the kind of excitement I find when I explore literatures I am not familiar with.”

Having heard from Bel Olid, I turned to my second leading contemporary voice, Adrià Pujol:

Adrià has written frequently for the Diari de Girona, La Llança and Avenç, alongside his collaborations with the Museu Etnològic de Barcelona and the Observatori de la Vida Quotidiana. Among his translations (of Henri Bergson, Pierre Michon, and Boris Vian), his rendering of Georges Perec’s Eclipse into Catalan, won the Serra d’Or Prize in 2018. His latest essay, Gluttony, appears in The Seven Deadly Sins, published by Fum d’Estampa. As with Bel, I sought his thoughts on the work being produced by contemporary Catalan scribes -

“Current Catalan literature is one of the best kept secrets on the world literary scene. It is experiencing a very sweet moment, with the emergence of new publishers and new voices, very powerful writers who are eager to tell stories. But there is a paradox: too much is published. Getting published has become relatively easy and the Catalan publishing world is somewhat a slave to novelty for novelty's sake.

Time will tell who writes to do a good work, and who writes because he likes to look in the mirror and say that he is a writer. For me, being a writer means working from Monday to Sunday and from January to December on the work that one wants to do. Writers who follow trends, or who only write during vacations don't interest me in the slightest — and there are too many of them in Catalan.”

So, as with all creative fields, quality trumps quantity. I asked Adrià to share his thoughts on the writers he considers to be doing “good work”, the voices he personally pays attention to amongst the metaphorical white noise:

“For me, the most interesting Catalan writers today are (amongst others), Irene Solà, Eva Baltasar, Joan Todó, Borja Bagunyà and Josep Pedrals. They have in common that they are young, that they have read a lot and that they take their work very seriously. Creatively or thematically, they address lifelong themes, but the shapes are new, intelligent, and they take great care of the balance between Catalan tradition, and innovation. They deal with emerging issues, of course, but they always keep an eye on the usual issues: death, identity, love... On the other hand, there are not-so-young writers who still have a lot to offer, such as Núria Perpinyà or Julià de Jòdar, Miquel de Palol or Toni Sala, for example.”

Turning to Adrià’s much acclaimed work, I was keen to understand his own contribution to Catalan contemporary literature and elucidate the forces acting as the creative mainspring within his fecund, multi-model authorial mind.

“My work is a project, a house where I want to live. Each book is a part of the house that I have been building for 25 years. I make my literature grow on multiple fronts, because each idea or theme needs its own vehicle… a specific form, or style.

Writing in Catalan positively conditions my literature because language becomes a central theme in my work. Sometimes, I even claim the right to be untranslatable, because I explore all the power of the Catalan language to write, and this sometimes makes it very difficult to translate myself into other languages — but I'm not worried, because we already know… that everything is translatable.”

Throughout this series we have witnessed the creative influence of a diverse pantheon of past writers hailing from many lands, and the inexorable influence of the Catalan tradition itself upon those treading new literary ground. Adrià proved to be no exception, however exceptional his own oeuvre!

“Regarding my influences, I think they range from Ramon Llull to Georges Perec, going through the rich Catalan tradition, first, and then through universal literature of all kinds. As I am also a translator (of Perec, Pierre Michon, Raymond Roussel, Boris Vian and others), my literature is constantly mixed with many traditions. In the morning I can reread Rabelais and, in the afternoon, I can reread Cynthia Ozick, or Josep Maria de Sagarra, and everything helps me for my work.”

Having unequivocally established that contemporary Catalan literature is in rude health, if qualitatively variegated depending upon your leanings towards popularism, or imported literary fashions, I wanted to turn to Adrià’s ongoing literary contributions to this undeniably talented, effervescent creative community…

“I recently participated in a special issue of GRANTA magazine, with my text in three languages (Catalan, Spanish and English), and I received messages from all over saying that they liked my work! Now an English publisher, Fum d'Estampa Press, has bought the rights to publish 5 translations of my books into English over the next three years. These include two works of fiction, two essays and a memoir.”

cq[This series was conceived with one simple purpose: to encourage its readers to seek out these neglected, but scintillating gems for themselves]

Our figurative “frigate” has returned to port having discovered a land brimming with shimmering literary delights. We’ve sailed across the turbulent seas of Catalan’s stormy past and encountered pioneering voices venerated to this day. We’ve discovered scintillatingly original, and profoundly courageous modern voices liberated from invidious oppression and brutal censure. Finally, we’ve visited the contemporary literary landscape and found it to be a burgeoning garden of varied delights, albeit with some of its most dazzling and exotic vegetation to be found off its most beaten tracks.

Past or present, one thing can be asserted with gusto, Catalan Literature contains innumerable coruscating gems, though many of these remain undiscovered by anglophone readers. With the ongoing and invaluable efforts of literary translators and judicious independent presses, these ‘gems’, historical, modern or contemporary are becoming ever more accessible to those who do not speak their mother tongue.

This series was conceived with one simple purpose: to encourage its readers to seek out these neglected, but scintillating gems for themselves, and hopefully discover a passion for Catalan literature similar to my own. At the very least, exploring what is new or unknown, is never anything but rewarding, surprising and above all, damn good fun!

Afterword…

I would like to end this series by paying hearty tribute to all those who have contributed to its making. Laura McGloughlin, Douglas Suttle, Bel Olid, Adrià Pojul and the ever-generous Tiago Miller. Montaigne’s words, “what do I know?” seem perennially pertinent…fortunately, those cited above have rendered his gloriously self-effacing question, a hugely constructive prompt to reach out to those far more erudite and informed than myself!