Mercè Rodoreda, página 4 de 10

I''ve worked in the literature section for almost eight years, and the beauty of Powell''s is in the opportunity to discover, time and again, an author that you''ve never heard of before, one that sits on a bottom shelf close to the floor gathering dust, and to have this author''s work speak to you in such a profound way that you take it as a sign some kind of god must exist. This is how I feel about Merce Rodoreda. She was Catalan, born in Barcelona in 1909, and lived through the Spanish Civil War, coming out on the losing side. Books in Catalan were burned, and the language was not allowed to be spoken. Set in wartime Spain, The Time of the Doves is the simple story of a young shop girl who struggles just to live and seeks to establish her identity amidst the cruelties of a country at war. Rodoreda''s style of writing is stream of consciousness, words on top of words, and the effect is hypnotic. Her prose is sensual, though not at all in a flowery way; rather, there''s a firmness and physicality in her language which beautifully illuminates the ordinary through the graceful, almost childlike, openness of the narrator. I recommend reading this book in one sitting if you have the chance. May it linger in you as it did in me.

Les grans actrius de l'escena catalana llegeixen/interpreten contes de Mercè Rodoreda

Recull de contes que presenten els estats d ' anim d ' un seguit de personatges que reprodueixen elements de la psicologia humana. Histories sobre el pas del temps, la perdua de la joventut, la soledat, la felicitat., escrites en una prosa evocativa i lirica, d ' una gran força expressiva.

Sans travail, sans rien en vue, j''ai fini de vendre ce qui me restait : mon lit de jeune fille, le matelas du lit aux colonnes, la montre de Quimet que je voulais donner a Antoni lorsqu''il serait grand. Tout le linge. Les coupes, les tasses, le buffet Et quand il ne me restait rien en dehors de ces monnaies qui me semblaient sacrees, j''ai fait taire ma fierte et je suis allee chez mes anciens patrons.Une Catalane, femme du peuple, originaire du quartier de Gracia a Barcelone, raconte sa vie. Avec delicatesse et discretion, Natalia evoque son adolescence, le travail elle est alors vendeuse dans une patisserie du quartier , son mariage, les maternites, la mort de son mari, milicien dans l''armee republicaine, la guerre civile, la faim, le desespoir, son remariageCe temoignage emouvant par la simplicite d''une vie banale en apparence, mais qui se deroule pendant une epoque mouvementee, la guerre civile puis les annees noires qui suivent la victoire du franquisme, est considere comme le chef-d''uvre du roman catalan depuis un quart de siecle.

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.

"Death in Spring "tells the story of the bizarre and destructive customs of a nameless town burying 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 through 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 teenaged stepmother, who becomes his playmate. Musical and rhythmic, this is truly the work of a writer at the height of her powers.Merce Rodoreda (1908 83) is widely regarded as the most important Catalan writer of the twentieth century.Martha Tennent translates from Spanish and Catalan, and received an NEA translation fellowship for her work on Rodoreda."