Böcker av Merce Rodoreda

Merc¿odoreda was born in Barcelona in 1908. During the Spanish Civil War she was exiled to France and later Switzerland. Rodoreda was only able to return to Barcelona in the mid-1960s, where she wrote several prize-winning novels in Catalan, including Death in Spring, which was inspired by her experience of Franco's dictatorship. Rodoreda died in 1983, a few years before Death in Spring's first publication, and is widely regarded as the most important Catalan writer of the twentieth century.

Featured on Jeff VanderMeer's "e;Epic List of Favorite Books Read in 2015"e;"e;Rodoreda had bedazzled me by the sensuality with which she reveals things within the atmosphere of her novels."e;Gabriel Garca Marquez"e;Rodoreda plumbs a sadness that reaches beyond historic circumstances . . . an almost voluptuous vulnerability."e;Natasha Wimmer, The Nation"e;It is a total mystery to me why [Rodoreda] isn't widely worshipped; along with Willa Cather, she's on my list of authors whose works I intend to have read all of before I die. Tremendous, tremendous writer."e;John Darnielle, The Mountain GoatsDespite its title, there is little of war and much of the fantastic in this coming-of-age story, which was the last novel Merc Rodoreda published during her lifetime.We first meet its young protagonist, Adri Guinart, as he is leaving Barcelona out of boredom and a thirst for freedom, embarking on a long journey through the backwaters of a rural land that one can only suppose is Catalonia, accompanied by the interminable, distant rumblings of an indefinable war. In vignette-like chapters and with a narrative style imbued with the fantastic, Guinart meets with numerous adventures and peculiar characters who offer him a composite, if surrealistic, view of an impoverished, war-ravaged society and shape his perception of his place in the world.As in Rodoreda's Death in Spring, nature and death play an fundamental role in a narrative that often takes on a phantasmagoric quality and seems to be a meditation on the consequences of moral degradation and the inescapable presence of evil.Merc Rodoreda (19081983) is widely regarded as the most important Catalan writer of the twentieth century. Exiled in France and Switzerland following the Spanish Civil War, Rodoreda began writing the novels and short storiesTwenty-Two Short Stories, The Time of the Doves, Camellia Street, Garden by the Seathat would eventually make her internationally famous.Maruxa Relao is a journalist and translator based in Barcelona. She has worked as a translator for The Wall Street Journal, a writer for NY1, and wrote articles for the New York Daily News, Newsday, and New York magazine, among other publications.Martha Tennent was born in the U.S, but has lived most of her life in Barcelona where she served as founding dean of the School of Translation and Interpreting at the University of Vic. She translates from Spanish and Catalan, and received an NEA Translation Fellowship for her work on Rodoreda.

Considered by many to be the grand achievement of her later period, Death in Spring is one of Merc Rodoreda's most complex and beautifully constructed works. The novel tells the story of the bizarre and destructive customs of a nameless townburying the dead in trees after filling their mouths with cement to prevent their soul from escaping, or sending a man to swim in the river that courses underneath the town to discover if they will be washed away by a floodthrough the eyes of a fourteen-year-old boy who must come to terms with the rhyme and reason of this ritual violence, and with his wild, child-like, and teenage stepmother, who becomes his playmate. It is through these rituals, and the developing relationships between the boy and the townspeople, that Rodoreda portrays a fully-articulated, though quite disturbing, society.The horrific rituals, however, stand in stark contrast to the novel's stunningly poetic language and lush descriptions. Written over a period of twenty yearsafter Rodoreda was forced into exile following the Spanish Civil WarDeath in Spring is musical and rhythmic, and truly the work of a writer at the height of her powers.Merc Rodoreda is widely regarded as the most important Catalan writer of the twentieth century. Exiled to France during the Spanish Civil War, and only able to return to Catalonia in the mid-1960s, she wrote a number of highly praised works, including The Time of the Doves and Death in Spring.Martha Tennent was born in the U.S, but has lived most of her life in Barcelona where she served as founding dean of the School of Translation and Interpreting at the University of Vic. She translates from Spanish and Catalan, and received an NEA Translation Fellowship for her work on Rodoreda.

'A small masterpiece' Colm Toibin, Daily Telegraph'I don't know how many times I have reread the book, including several times in Catalan, with such effort that speaks volumes to my devotion to the novel' Gabriel Garcia Marquez'The fierce beauty of Rodoreda's writing makes it one of the masterpieces of modern European literature' IndependentFirst published in 1962 as 'La Placa del Diamant', this is considered the most important Catalan novel of all time. This is a new English translation. It has previously been published in English as The Time of the Doves.Barcelona, early 1930s: Natalia, a pretty shop-girl from the working-class quarter of Gracia, is hesitant when a stranger asks her to dance at the fiesta in Diamond Square. But Joe is charming and forceful, and she takes his hand.They marry and soon have two children; for Natalia it is an awakening, both good and bad. When Joe decides to breed pigeons, the birds delight his son and daughter - and infuriate his wife. Then the Spanish Civil War erupts, and lays waste to the city and to their simple existence. Natalia remains in Barcelona, struggling to feed her family, while Joe goes to fight the fascists, and one by one his beloved birds fly away.A highly acclaimed classic that has been translated into more twenty-eight languages, In Diamond Square is the moving, vivid and powerful story of a woman caught up in a convulsive period of history.'An extremely moving love story translated from the Catalan, which reveals much about the Spanish civil war as ordinary, non-political people had to live it' Diana Athill'Go along with Natalia on her night out and you'll soon find you'd follow her anywhere. Rodoreda's writing pays such fierce and tender attention to the experience of being alive, and the tempest that ordinary life can be' Helen Oyeyemi