Publisher's Synopsis
Considering how much poetry the great Catalan writer Salvador Espriu wrote,
a representative selection is a tall order for any translator. Louis
Rodrigues has limited his choice to a hundred poems, in order to highlight
some of the more notable and original features -- features which challenge
the ingenuity of the translator: the absence of articles in the formulation
of clauses and sentences, abrupt transitions of tense, a constant use of
alliteration and paronomasia, the complex syntax, a degree of hermeticism.
Yet the conceptual rigour and precision of the ideas expressed and the
haunting rhythms which are captured here are more than a shadow of the
original.
Espriu's mission was to make the Catalan language sing and survive
the bleak years when Franco insisted that a unified Spain required a single
tongue and forbade the use of the other national languages. The vigour --
intellectual and lyrical -- of Espriu's poems was and remains an
inspiration and a consolation to all Catalan speakers.
