Easter Week is usually a parenthesis, a getaway for a few days, but in these parts we are quite clear that the proximity of Sant Jordi can change everything. This year, moreover, World Book Day is approaching, threatened by the presence of The Grinch of Sant Jordi (Comanegra), a monster more evil than the dragon, and which has a physiognomy that is very reminiscent of the writer Quim Monzo.
Oh, and also his name is Quim. The delicious hooliganism is the work of oriol malet and jair dominguezwhich the cartoonist presented with Joan Sala on Wednesday at the La Irreal bookstore in Tortosa.
This is the Grinch of Sant Jordi
Where Sant Jordi is always held on Holy Thursday is in Torroella de Montgrí. The El Cucut bookstore, with M. Teresa Calabus in front, has celebrated the tenth edition of its literary snack, this year with a heartfelt tribute to Vicenç Pages Jorda. The writer, who died in August 2022, was a neighbor of the Empordà population, but for the bookstore he was like a godfather.
Calabús explains that he has been with them since 1987, when they opened: “He was the first in everything we organized: a presentation, a reading club… And at the literary snack he was one more host.”
We proclaim the El Cucut bookstore the center of resistance of the work of Vicenç Pagès Jordà
The influx to this pre-Sant Jordi meeting is so large that this year the El Cucut bookstore was forced, “in order not to die of success”, to set certain limitations: “We have only invited authors with new features after the previous Sant Jordi ”.
Even so, there were around fifty writers who gathered, such as the Sant Jordi prize Gemma Ruiz Pala (our seas, Bow), Marius Serra (The most painted donut, Bow), Gemma Sarda (Lady Puffins, Blackeater) or Jordi Cabre (hi is there someone elseUnivers).
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Before trying the celebrated brunyols Empordà, the bookstore addressed a few words to the crowd that filled the street, highlighting what, for her, is a bookstore: “It is the meeting point between the reader and the author. We are not judges or literary critics. Of course we have preferences, but we have a lot of respect for all authors.” And he proclaimed El Cucut “the center of resistance of Vicenç’s work; as long as the publishers publish his work, we will have it ”.
The mayor Jordi Colomí spoke of the “conflicting feelings” that came together on this occasion and expressed the wish that “the literary snack of El Cucut be the main literary festival of Torroella”. Immediately afterwards, the attendees were able to taste the products of the land of the houses that collaborate in this festival. For the first time there was beer, Moska, a product long claimed by Pagès Jordà, with which we toasted his memory with Camila, his partner.
Joan Sellent, Gonzalo Pérez de Olaguer honorary prize, at the Scenic Arts Critics Awards
The week began on Monday with the gala of the XXV Awards of the Critics of the Performing Arts. On the stage of the Romea Theatre, among other reflections, Joan Sellent He stated: “The translator must be invisible.” That is to say, that the language has to flow, so that the public does not realize that what the interpreters say is not originally written in the language in which they are hearing it.
In these times when artificial intelligence threatens so many jobs, the philologist from Valles, one of the most prestigious theater translators in the Catalan language, defended the craft of theater translation, which a machine will never be able to do.
The translator must be invisible
Journalist Andreu Gomila was in charge of reading the gloss, which began with a fragment of the Sellentian version of Hamlets: “The work of the translator, here, is great, as much or more than when he has had to face ‘To be or not to be’. He has to maintain the precision of Shakespeare, the poetic flight of him and ensure that the clash of two worlds, the one below and the one above, does not wreak havoc”.
Because the honored translator has been responsible for making the Catalan-speaking public enjoy the best of Anglo-Saxon dramatic literature: Arthur Miller, Harold Pinter, Tennessee Williams, David Mamet, JB Priestley, Brian Friel, Edward Albee…
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On Tuesday, the confluence between Holy Week and the approaching Sant Jordi became more evident in the presentation of Postmo (Consonni). Is Ivan of the Nut a risen dead? On the terrace of the La Central bookstore on Calle Mallorca, the Barcelona-based Cuban writer explained how, on January 6, 2015, he received his own death certificate.
It was his father who had died, but he did not realize the mistake until he had to start doing the paperwork, specifically when he wanted to cancel the supply card that Cuban citizens have. “At the funeral home they fixed it diligently,” he explained to the journalist Laura Fernandezwho accompanies him in the talk.
‘Posmo’ is a kind of Chateaubriand-style memoir
But back in Barcelona that fact made him think about many things and from there he was born Postmo, Post mortem, of course, a kind of Chateaubriand-style memoir, says de la Nuez.
The volume is an essay made up of pills, where he reflects on various things, such as self-portraits and selfies, the role of museums today, the political complexity of the Caribbean, when the 21st century really begins, or why people hunt Pokémon. And then they say that the ghost is him.
Catalan version, here
