Bèsties 13. Samper

11.00€

A selection of Màrius Sampere’s most representative poems. Sampere is a consolidated voice —one of the most important— in the Catalan literary world, yet he has managed to stay away from its  most established currents. Having constructed a prolific and self-referential body of work, Sampere’s poems reveal the ultimate motivation behind his writing: everyday life. His work hits the bottom and unmasks readers, as it touches transcendenal issues with deep humility, from a metaphysical viewpoint but also with a touch of playful humor. At the same time, its approach to life and the universe is clearly influenced by Orientalism. His recurring theme is human condition, a motive that Mireia Vidal-Conte has faithfully conveyed in her selection.

Màrius Sampere (Barcelona, 1928) is a poet. His first collection, L’home i el límit, earned him the prestigious Carles Riba poetry prize in 1963. Through the seventies and the eighties he won several awards and his books were published regularly. From the 90s onwards his work recieves institutional recognition and popular acclaim, as he recieves such accolades as the Serra d’Or Critics’ award for Subllum (2000) or the Premi de la Crítica, the Ciutat de Barcelona and the Nacional de Cultura awards. In 2010 he is awarded the Premi Jaume Fuster, chosen by Catalan writers.

Mireia Vidal-Conte (Barcelona, 1970) is a poet and translator. Bachelor of Information Science (UAB) and Literary Theory and Comparative Literature (UB), her work has featured in many anthologies, such as El poder del cuerpo  (ed. Meri Torras), Donzelles de l’any 2000 or Eròtiques i Despentinades, Trentaquattro Poeti Catalani per il XXI secolo. She has translated the works of Brigitte Oleschinski, Jordi Carrió and Eugènia de Vasconcellos. Her work has been translated into Italian and Czech.

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Bèsties is a wallpaper collection that combines the poetry and the portraits of some of the most acclaimed authors of universal literature. A selection of excerpts —posthumous, unpublished, forgotten— are presented in a groundbreaking format by the translators, current Catalan poets. The posters escape the parcelling of conventional pagination to project in a single canvas the unity of meaning emanating from the poems. Each wallpaper comes with a separate front page including a foreword by the translator, which contextualizes their selection and situates the author in their context.