Exploring Catalan Literature - Part Seven : All That Glitters Is Not Gold

Catalan literature, much like any other body of writing, should not be approached with the immutable idée fixe that all that glitters is gold. However effervescent a creative cauldron maybe, it’s prudent to bear in mind that the ingredients of such bubbling broths are often variegated in both quality and appeal! The illaudable mixes with its antithesis, ergo any literary bricolage demands judicious scrutiny, lest the meretricious is mistaken for the meritorious.

With the above in mind, an English-speaking audience hoping to engage with Catalan Literature, whether produced by venerated scribes of the past, or the hugely talented avant-garde pens of contemporary authors, is especially reliant upon the assiduously sensitive skills of erudite literary translators, and the considered judgement of specialist publishers.

cq[To express myself, I feel that Catalan does the best job…my main reason for writing in Catalan is emotional]

I wanted to understand the challenges faced by those bringing fine Catalan literature to our shores and take the figurative pulse of Contemporary Catalan literature per se. Echoing Montaigne in so much as ‘What do I know?’ neatly summarises my own ignorance, I turned to four expert witnesses to gain a meaningful and holistic understanding of the issues catalysing my curiosity.

In this penultimate article in our series, we will hear from a leading literary translator and a thriving independent press, both tackling the inestimably important task of sharing Catalan’s poetic and fictional gems with those unable to read them in their original language. Our concluding episode will turn to the considered, but unflinchingly candid thoughts of two leading contemporary authors, Bel Olid and Adrià Pujol.

Born in Ireland, Laura McGloughlin has been a freelance translator from Catalan and Spanish since completing a Masters in literary translation at the University of East Anglia. Her most recent translations are Wilder Winds and Hairless, both by Bel Olid, and The Carnivorous Plant by Andrea Mayo. She lives in Dénia, on the Valencian coast.

Having read Olid’s scintillating collection of short stories Wilder Winds as translated by Laura, my own lazy androcentrism had been surgically dismantled by Olid’s skillfully nuanced pen, and Laura’s facility to voice her words and their rhythms with potent éclat. Although Olid reads and writes in a multitude of European languages, she recently said at the Santa Jordi USA literature festival in Chicago, “To express myself, I feel that Catalan does the best job…my main reason for writing in Catalan is emotional”.

Clearly, the role of the translator is utterly vital in bringing us, as readers, the authentic voice of the author, rather than a flaccid, if understandable substitution for their deliberately chosen words. Tiago Miller, in conversation with podcaster and exceptionally astute critic Liam Bishop, said recently, “the literary translator has to honour an author’s words”. Jason Grunebaum, a professor teaching Hindi at Chicago University and a well-respected translator of Southeast Asian literature, believes that choosing the right words is a profoundly creative process, and that translators should be given the same respect afforded the authors they translate. He recently said, “I’ve taken a great liking to the notion of translation as the purist form of writing: no other mode of writing is as exclusively focused on language as translation.”

Given that Catalan, the language itself, acts so distinctively as the creative and emotional afflatus galvanizing the pens of many of Catalan’s scribes, past and present, I was not surprised to learn that Laura had succumbed to its mesmeric power. Laura’s translations of Olid’s works demonstrate a love for the language itself, and brilliantly echo the thoughts of both Tiago Miller and Jason Grunebaum.

“I’ve always had an affinity for languages and during my English & Hispanic Studies degree in Cork, I had the opportunity to learn Catalan. Initially it was for practical reasons — so I could do an ERASMUS year in Barcelona — but I fell headlong in love with both the language and literature. By the end of my very first translation class in Barcelona, I knew I wanted to translate literature from Catalan, so love won out over practicality!”

As both Miller and Grunebaum have implied, the art of voicing one language in another’s register is a profoundly creative endeavour fraught with artistic and technical challenges which cannot be surmounted without erudition, intuition and authorial finesse on the part of the translator. Given that Catalan is a language and not a dialect and shares much in common with all the Romance languages, I wanted to explore Laura’s views on the specific challenges it presents to a literary translator…

“On a linguistic level, a common feature in Catalan literature is very long sentences with lots of clauses which must be shifted around — like a translation Rubik’s Cube — for an Anglophone reader. On a professional level though, perhaps the number of books published each year, and a certain reluctance from Anglophone publishers to publish more than one translation from Catalan in a year, so the amount of work available has been finite. With the financial support provided by l’Institut Ramon Llull to publishers, however, I’m happy to say that number is growing steadily.”

It would appear that Laura’s optimism concerning work being published in translation is well founded. According to Grunebaum, during the 1980s forty-nine novels translated from Catalan to English made their way onto the bookshelves of America. During the period 2011-2022 that number has swelled to 230, equating to approximately twenty novels in translation per year. This increase is largely due to the support of l’Institut Ramon Llull, and the tireless efforts of brave independent publishers.

Having appreciated the importance and creative brilliance of literary translators like Laura McGloughlin, Tiago Miller, Mary Ann Newman, Megan Berkobien and Maria Cristina Hall, to name but a few, I asked Laura to share her thoughts on Contemporary Catalan literature and its literary wellbeing.

“The current literary scene is burgeoning with gems, but as a reader and translator what I find most striking is how smaller publishers like Males Herbes, L’Altra, or Amsterdam are bringing original voices and unusual narratives to their readers - Aioua by Roser Cabré-Verdiell and Napalm al cor by Pol Guasch, to name just a couple. There’s a daring in Catalan publishing right now I find exhilarating.”

Laura’s evident enthusiasm for Catalan and the literature being made in this most fecund of languages, led me to wonder what creative projects she had up her sleeve, themselves likely to add to Catalan’s already rich literary deposits.

“I’m currently working on a translation of Empar Moliner’s Benvolguda (Beloved) - it’s a darkly funny novel and very relatable. There are a few novels up my sleeve that I‘ve read and adored and hope to pitch to publishers later this year; a project with Bel Olid that will happen, fingers crossed. I’m also planning to write while walking the Camino de Santiago, starting next month.”

So, it appears that Contemporary Catalan literature is awash with talented authors contributing to our metaphorical bubbling cauldron of literary activity. Whilst Laura could not be accused of being Panglossian in the face of the challenges faced by herself, or Contemporary Catalan literature per se, I wondered if a specialist press would echo her thoughts or frame these challenges in a less fetching light. I turned to our second expert witness, Douglas Suttle, the founder of a specialist press invaluably helping an English-speaking audience to sagely navigate the outpourings of Catalan’s many scribes.

Fum d’Estampa Press, loosely translated from Catalan into English as ‘Smoke from the press’, was founded in 2019 and has already published fifteen works in translation, including works from the likes of renowned Catalan authors, such as Goodbye, Ramona, by Montserrat Roig, Wilder Winds by Bel Olid, or One Day of Life is Life by Joan Maragall. Their efforts have gained much approbation, with many of their published titles having been long- and short-listed for some of the most prestigious literary prizes both in the UK and abroad. They have recently started to publish similarly exquisite literature in translation from languages other than Catalan.

With only around ten million Catalan speakers in the world, Catalan literature is regrettably not widely known. Although Grunebaum’s analysis as mentioned above is encouraging, only six percent of books published in the United Kingdom are translations. This niche market is dauntingly small, however it, like its American cousin, is increasing thanks to trailblazing independent presses like FdE. By partnering with meritorious authors and translators not necessarily found in the spotlight, FdE is certainly playing the quality over quantity card! I wanted to understand Doug’s motivation for choosing to focus his efforts upon such a nascent and disconcertingly miniscule market…

“My life is lived primarily in Catalan, and I wanted to give something back. I’d worked as a translator and had some experience with editing and the publishing world, and so I thought I’d just dive in.” He is on record as saying, “It’s important to learn at least some elements of the language wherever you go, but with Catalan it was something more. It’s a beautiful language that, on a very basic level, is a mixture of Spanish and French. The sounds, the turns of phrase, everything appealed to me. And it wasn’t long before I found myself reading in the language”.

“In terms of what I felt the press might bring to an already busy marketplace, I feel that Catalan literature generally punches above its weight and touches on a great many universal issues and themes. That’s not to say that all Catalan literature is great – it’s not and there’s a lot of stuff published that I’m not at all interested in. But there is a lot of great writing…I just wanted to share that with the English-speaking world. As far as how this is realised, we publish books that we find interesting, and try and do our very best for the writers we publish”.

However laudable Doug’s literary aims undoubtedly are, publishing is a business when all is said and done. Like many small, independent presses, FdE takes advantage of grants from the government funded l’Institut Ramon Llull, however, competition is rife and popularism casts a large shadow over Doug’s literary world. In response to my dry observation, Doug pointed to myriad challenges faced by his intrepid press…

“…Commercial challenges such as prices going up all the time and book prices remaining static. Creative challenges include staying confident in what you’re doing. It’s a minefield out there. The whole awards thing is just awful. Cultural challenges…every new author – regardless of how famous they are in Catalan – must be presented as a ‘new author’ in the UK…It’s difficult.”

cq[That figurative pulse I sought to take would appear to be, ‘strong – and getting stronger’!]

Despite the commercial and artistic challenges faced by Doug, he left me in no doubt that the Contemporary Catalan literary scene is thriving…

“I’d say that there’s a strong – and getting stronger – contemporary literature scene in the Catalan language, that is getting better and better through the authors’ growing access to influences from beyond the Catalan borders. Adrià Pujol is an exceptional writer who deserves to be known around the world, as is Borja Borganyà and Elisenda Solsona is another writer whose work I love.”

So, we’ve heard from a passionate literary translator very much under the captivating spell of Catalan as a mesmeric literary language, and from an equally passionate publisher sounding a sagacious note of caution, but determinedly bringing us carefully selected treasures in the form of fine literary translations. That figurative pulse I sought to take would appear to be, ‘strong – and getting stronger’!



In our concluding episode, I explore Contemporary Catalan literature per se with two pioneering, hugely respected authors and discover that whilst all that glitters is indeed not gold, with the help of gifted translators and artistically sensitive publishers, English-speaking readers engaging with contemporary Catalan works are in for a kaleidoscopic bevvy of delights!