Bèsties 18. Català

11.00€

Enric Casasses presents twelve poems from the time when Victor Català was not even in her thirties: wild, insubordinate and deeply personal —and almost impossible to find in bookstores.

Pel desert de la nit, lliure d’hipnòtics,
sens recer ni fronteres ni poblat,
sota el flagell d’un gran poder despòtic,
el pensament es llança desbocat.

Víctor Català (L’Escala, 1869-1966) was the pen name used by Caterina Albert i Paradís. A central figure in Catalan modernisme and, by extension, in 20th century Catalan literature, Català standed out because of her narrative prowess and an incisive style, which was a reflection of her original and independent character, as evidenced in her short stories (Drames rurals, 1902) and in the acclaimed novel Solitud, one of the most universal works in Catalan literature. She led a reclusive life in her Empúries home, and continued writing and publishing after the dissolution of the Noucentisme movement: some scattered works in the 1920s and a string of prose and short story collections in the 1940s and 1950s, published by Editorial Selecta. Her main works remain popular and are regularly reprinted in Catalan.

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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 A selection of excerpts —posthumous, unpublished, forgotten— are presented in a groundbreaking format by the translators, current Catalan poets.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.