Declining Birthday Invitation

Catalan writer, thanks Rodoreda (1908-1983)

More than ten novels, a collection of exquisite short stories, poems, newspaper articles, interviews, an enormous literary production has Rodoreda turned in one of the most important writers and most influential of Catalan literature in recent times. Received over fifteen awards and his work was translated into forty languages. Aloma, Mirall Trencat or La Plaça del Diamant are some of the wonderful titles that gave us an educated woman, feisty and independent.

A childhood surrounded by letters

Rodoreda Gurguí i was born in Barcelona in 1908 in the heart of a wealthy family. Only daughter of the married couple and Montserrat Andreu Rodoreda Gurguí, Rodoreda inherited from his parents a love of literature, theater and art in general.

Authors Catalans as Ramon Llull, Jacint Verdaguer, Joan Maragall and Josep Carner were some of their favorites.

intermarriage

Mercè In 1921 she married John Gurguí, brother of his mother (they needed a papal dispensation) and fourteen years her senior and had a child eight years later, Jordi Gurguí i Rodoreda. The marriage did not last long. In 1937, civil war separated.

Mercè

did not want to become a living wife use her husband's wealth. Seeking economic independence decided to write, conceiving of literature as a profession to be capable of being maintained. Alongside the first exercises literary, Mercè was introduced in the journalistic profession in Clarisme weekly magazine in 1933. That same year he became a part of the Press Association of Barcelona.

long exile A

Although Rodoreda not actively participate in Catalan politics, the act of writing in Catalan and have done so in left-leaning magazine the girl forced into exile. An exile that she believed it would not be long so she left her son in Barcelona in the care of his mother.

The first stage of his long stay outside Catalonia was the castle of Roissy-en-Brie, where other writers were also installed. There he met Armand Obiols, who, despite being married, became his mistress.

Started World War II, the couple fled the Nazis and, after a long tour through several cities of France got established in Geneva (1954). It was in this city that never felt comfortable, where he wrote much of his work.

In 1971, Armand's death and the discovery of a secret lover of his fellow Mercè resulted in a feeling of loneliness and sadness.

Last abode

With the disappearance of Armand Obiols, nothing kept her outside Catalonia. In 1972 he ended his long exile and settled in the Forest Romanyà where he spent the rest of his life to writing.

In 1983, 75, died in Gerona Rodoreda of cancer liver.

An eternal work

Rodoreda bequeathed to Catalan literature works from the likes of Aloma, Mirall Trencat, El carrer de les Camelias or La Plaça del Diamant , where the woman is alone and tormented one of them common elements.

donated his intellectual legacy bequeathed to the Institute of Catalan Studies. Time after the Foundation was created Rodoreda working for the conservation and dissemination of his work and Catalan literature.

Some of their works

Square Diamond
Aloma
Broken Mirror
The Camellia Street
Garden by the sea
Travels and flowers
My Cristina and Other Stories