Catalan Literature in the Postwar Franco Era
What impact did the postwar Franco dictatorship have on language and literature? How did the situation evolve in Catalan literature during the war?
During the early postwar years, Catalan literature remained latent. During the forties and fifties, there were fundamental works by authors such as Josep Carner and J.V. Foix. Yet, despite this echo of hope, Catalan would be banned for a considerable period. Both the publication of books and plays in Catalan had to wait for more favorable years, starting in 1946, after the end of World War II with the defeat of totalitarian regimes. From that moment, Catalan was recovered very slowly, hindered by political and moral censorship. Fortunately, there were literary voices during this time, with high quality and impact, such as the poets Carles Riba and Joan Oliver. The popular success of Josep Pla and Josep Maria de Sagarra was very important to regain an audience for Catalan literature. It also came at a time of confirmation for writers of great value, such as Mercè Rodoreda, Llorenç Villalonga, and Salvador Espriu.
Who was Mercè Rodoreda?
The literary career of Mercè Rodoreda began in the Republican period in Catalonia. She published a series of novels, of which she only saved the novel Aloma, which made her a renowned author. It offers a portrait of a young girl that allows us to get closer to the family and environmental conditions of an era. In this sense, the novelist had matured in her style and had the skill to convey the atmosphere of a historical time. Aloma also demonstrates the poetic charge that the writer knew how to give to her words. The issues of war and human cruelty are reflected in the stories and novels she wrote. These stories are excellent examples of her quality as a narrator. She collected her stories and presented them for the Victor Català award, which she won, entitled Twenty-Two Stories. The different techniques used in this book range from subjective narrative and poetic writing to speech and interior monologue.
La Plaça del Diamant
La Plaça del Diamant (The Diamond Plaza in English) is the novel that Mercè Rodoreda worked on with intensity in Geneva. The writer had the ability to reproduce the inner world of Natàlia-Colometa, certainly representative of many people who had stayed in the country. Natàlia is a special and impressive character, a woman who endured the war period, who could not even think about running away. It is a novel written with great style and language.
Mirall Trencat
Mirall Trencat (Broken Mirror in English) is one of the most accomplished works of Rodoreda’s novelistic trajectory. The title suggests that the concept of realistic fiction, the novel as a mirror, has ended. The approach chosen by the authors of the twentieth century is the partial and subjective point of view. Objectivity is not possible. However, the novel becomes a disenchanted meditation on human existence. Furthermore, the mirror that reflects the object over time is broken by the presence of absolute death, which entails the destruction of the universe of fiction.
The symbolism that appears in Rodoreda’s works includes motifs like flowers and gardens, which relate to children. The modest garden of Aloma has become, in Mirall Trencat, a magical and mythical character. Each novel has its symbolic emblem: the flower in Aloma, the dove in La Plaça del Diamant, the water in Mirall Trencat.
Who was Llorenç Villalonga?
Majorcan writer Llorenç Villalonga is another great figure in Catalan literature, who achieved a brilliant form of expression through the novel. From the benchmark of his own biography, he reconstructed a world, a society that had ceased to exist. Bearn o la sala de les nines (Bearn or the Hall of Dolls in English) is his main work and presents a main character from the rural aristocracy of Mallorca, Toni, who expresses the obsession with preserving his memories in memoirs. It is curious to note the evolution of Villalonga. Before the Civil War, he was a Frenchified, snobbish, anti-Catalan writer with fascist tendencies. But after the war, he moved away from Falangist fascist ideas and created the mythical Bearn. All of Villalonga’s work revolves around the novel Bearn o la sala de les nines. He transformed lived reality (his autobiography) into a subjective, personal, and mythical world, through caricatural deformation and elegiac evocation.
Who was Pere Calders?
Pere Calders was a storyteller who did important work in the field of the short story and the novel. He published a book of short stories, El primer arlequí (The First Harlequin in English). We can already see the first expression of his narrative line. The Civil War, however, cut short the beginning of his literary career. In exile, he wrote a novel: Cròniques de la veritat oculta (Chronicles of the Hidden Truth in English), a work of unquestionable quality and maturity, playing with a very special mood and approach to a fantasy land.
Who was Manuel de Pedrolo?
Manuel de Pedrolo was one of the most widely read writers of the postwar period and contributed to a certain normalization of the public reception of Catalan literature in several areas: a science-fiction novel, Mecanoscrit del segon origen (Typescript of the Second Origin in English), and involvement in the phenomenon of popular crime fiction, Joc brut (Foul Play in English).
Who was Salvador Espriu?
The need to take refuge in memories and the constant meditation on death are features of the poetry of Salvador Espriu. They were the scene that remained after the Civil War: the unavoidable context of a harsh and cruel war. This trend is seen in books such as Cançons d’Ariadna (Songs of Ariadne in English), Cementiri de Sinera (Sinera Cemetery in English), and Les hores (The Hours in English). But we must not forget his role in civil protest, which is manifested in La pell de brau (The Bull Skin in English). In many of these lines, he expressed the dream of a future of freedom, peace, and coexistence. The orientation of poetic reflection and social policy had a huge collective impact, although the usual issues of Espriu’s poetry were still present in this work. It should be stressed that Salvador Espriu achieved representation as the national poet of Catalonia in a time of lack of freedom and basic human rights.
Who was Joan Oliver?
Some poems by Joan Oliver, also known as Pere Quart, are in the flow of historical or social realism that developed during the sixties. He manifested a rejection of hermetic, post-symbolist poetry and believed in the virtues that the poetic word could have in the fight against the oppression of Franco’s dictatorship. His most important work is Vacances pagades (Paid Leave in English).