Biography
Mercè Rodoreda i Gurguí was born in Barcelona, in Sant Gervasi, a quiet, wealthy neighbourhood, on October 10, 1908. Her grandfather was a role model to her. Because she did not attend school, she was a lonely, anti-social child. It was her grandfather who shared with her his passion for reading and flowers, which she would later reflect on her literary production.
In 1928, at the age of twenty, she was forced into marriage with Joan Gurguí (aged 34), her uncle, a man who had become wealthy in America. Her only son, Jordi Gurguí, was born in 1929. Marriage and motherhood were an unwanted experience to her. In the 1930s, Mercè Rodoreda only occupation was writing. She started a regular career, progressively perfecting her skills by collaborating in prestigious newspapers and magazines (Meridià, Mirador, Revista de Catalunya); she generally wrote stories. She published novels that she would later reject, in fact, she does not include it in her Obres completes: Sóc una dona honrada (1932), Del que hom no pot fugir (1934), Un dia en la vida d'un home (1934), Crim (1936). The only exception was Aloma(1938), which won the Crexells award.
She was very active during those years; she worked at Comissariat de Propaganda de la Generalitat de Catalunya and was member of the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes. As for her personal life, she is often connected to Andreu Nin, a Trotskyist, and to the novelist and cultural promoter Francesc Tabal, who belonged to the Grup de Sabadell together with the poet Pere Quart. Her relationships were both personal and intellectual.
She went into exile on January 21, 1939. She moved with other Catalan writers -Pere Calders, Joan Oliver/Pere Quart, Armand Obiols, Xavier Benguerel, Francesc Trabal, Agustí Bartra, Anna Murià and Cèsar August Jordana- to the castle in Roissy-en-Brie, near Paris. In that refuge in exile, the author starts a sentimental relationship with Armand Obiols -pen-name of Joan Prat i Esteve. Most Catalan writers in exile moved to America, but Mercè Rodoreda (and Obiols) chose to stay in France (they even live through the Nazi occupation of the country and had to flee). She lived in Limoges and Bordeaux, and then she moved back to Paris in 1946. It was a hard time to survive during which, in words of the author, "writing seemed a terribly frivolous occupation". Her dire financial situation prevented her from working in her literature; she even worked as a seamstress for hire.
Her drama production occurs during these first years of exile (1940-1945), when there was still hope in Catalonia to restore the legitimacy of the Republic and the author still has in mind the projection that Catalan theatre has had before the war. In any case, none of her plays would be performed in Catalonia until after 1979, and they were not published until ten years after her death.
Around 1946, after a period of uncertainty and romantic conflict, she started writing poetry. She was under the judgement of Josep Carner, who apparently encouraged her because of the quality of her writings, as he states in the letters he sent her. She produced a few sonnets that inspired her to write an anthology entitled Món d'Ulisses, which she would work on and off until the late 1950s. Nine of these sonnets were published in 1974; besides, she won the Natural Flower at the Floral Games in London in 1947, in Paris in 1948, and in Montevideo in 1949, where she was proclaimed "Mestra en Gai Saber".
In the early 1950s, Mercè Rodoreda achieved certain financial stability and started a period of reorganisation of her work and productivity: she collected the stories she had spread in different magazines during her exile, she added some unedited ones, and she broke her twenty-year-long silence with Vint-i-dos contes (1958), which received the Víctor Català award in 1957, and encouraged her to write Jardí vora el mar, In Diamond Square and La mort i la primavera.
In 1960, she submitted In Diamond Square (under the tile Colometa) to the 1960 Sant Jordi awards. The jury rejected the novel (among the members of the jury was Josep Pla, who branded it as "a corny little novel"). In 1961, she submitted La mort i la primavera to the same award, also rejected.
After the publication of In Diamond Square (1962), she established her position as a writer, and secured her relationship to the publishing world; she edited her books in Club Editor, under the management of Joan Sales.
In 1966, she was finally given the Sant Jordi award for El carrer de les Camèlies; she had not submitted the work, but it was decided that the award would be given to a book already published. Later on, this novel would grant her two more awards, Crítica (1967) and Ramon Llull (1969). After that, she published La meva Cristina i altres contes (1967), Jardí vora el mar (1967) and the second version of Aloma (1969).
In 1971, her partner Armando Obiols passed away in Geneva (he lived in a flat facing the Léman lake). In 1972, while staying in Romanyà de la Selva, she decided to go back to Catalonia. Francoism was at its last moments, which was a key factor to her decision. In Romanya she finished her novel Mirall trencat (1974), considered by many her most solid production; after that, she published Semblava de seda i altres contes (1978), Tots els contes (1979), Viatges i flors (1980) and Quanta, quanta guerra... (1980).
When she returned to Catalonia, she became Honorary Member of the Associació d'Escriptors en Llengua Catalana, and she was given the Premi d’Honor de les Lletres Catalanes (Honorary Award of Lletres Catalanes) in 1980. She died in Girona (April 13, 1983) after she was suddenly detected a cancerous tumour, and she was buried in Romanyà de la Selva. She left her literary heritage to Institut d'Estudis Catalans (Institute of Catalan Studies), which would later create the Fundació Mercè Rodoreda.
In 1985, the writer Anna Murià agreed to publish their correspondence (Cartes a l'Anna Murià: 1939-1956), the letters that Mercè Rodoreda had discreetly sent her from Limoges, Paris, Bordeaux and Geneva, and in which she expresses the problems and anguish she experienced during her exile, as well as the writing process for some of her novels. In 1986, her unfinished novel La mort i la primavera was edited posthumously.
From 1998 on, the Mercè Rodoreda award for stories and prose fiction is announced, honouring the author. Her work is still re-edited and translated today, and she is one of the most important contemporary authors of Catalan literature.
Source:
https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merc%C3%A8_Rodoreda_i_Gurgu%C3%AD 17-2-22
Works
Narrative
(1932). Sóc una dona honrada?
(1934). Del que hom no pot fugir
(1934). Un dia de la vida d'un home
(1936). Crim
(1938). Aloma
(1958). Vint-i-dos contes (recull de diferents relats).
(1962). La plaça del Diamant
(1966). El carrer de les Camèlies
(1967). Jardí vora el mar
(1967). La meva Cristina i altres contes (recull de diferents relats).
(1974). Mirall trencat
(1978). Semblava de seda i altres contes (recull de diferents relats).
(1979). Tots els contes (recull de diferents relats).
(1980). Viatges i flors (recull de diferents relats).
(1980). Quanta, quanta guerra...
(1986). La mort i la primavera (novel·la inacabada).
(1991). Isabel i Maria (pòstuma).
Drama
(1959). Un dia
(1976). El parc de les magnòlies
(1993). El torrent de les flors (recull d'obres de teatre que conté els textos: Un dia, La senyora Florentina i el seu amor Homer, L'hostal de les tres Camèlies i El maniquí.
(1953). La senyora Florentina i el seu amor Homer
(1979). El maniquí
(1973). L'hostal de les tres Camèlies
Children's and young adult narrative (edited posthumously)
(1994). La brusa vermella i altres contes. Barcelona: Barcanova.
(2008). Contes infantils de Mercè Rodoreda. Barcelona: Baula.
(2012). Les fades. Barcelona: Baula.
Source: https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merc%C3%A8_Rodoreda_i_Gurgu%C3%AD (retrieved on 17-2-22)
Bibliography
ARNAU, Carme (1979). Introducció a la narrativa de Mercè Rodoreda. El mite de la infantesa. Barcelona: Edicions 62. Llibres a l’abast, 144.
ARNAU, Carme (1990). Miralls màgics. Aproximació a l’última narrativa de Mercè Rodoreda. Barcelona: Edicions 62. Llibres a l’abast, 254.
CASALS I COUTURIER, M. (1991). Mercè Rodoreda. Contra la vida, la literatura. Edicions 62, Barcelona .
MASSIP, Francesc; PALAU, Montserrat (2002). L’obra dramàtica de Mercè Rodoreda. Barcelona: Proa. Biblioteca Literària - Estudis, 6.
MENCOS, Maria Isidra (2002). Mercè Rodoreda: una bibliografia crítica (1963-2001). Barcelona: Fundació Mercè Rodoreda, FP - Institut d’Estudis Catalans. Biblioteca Mercè Rodoreda, 1.«Mercè Rodoreda, escriptora». [Dossier.] L’Avenç, n. 301 (abril 2005), pp. 21-47.
MURIÀ, ANNA (2003). Reflexions de la vellesa. Publicacions de l'Abadia de Montserrat,
PESSARRODONA, Marta (2005). Mercè Rodoreda i el seu temps. Barcelona: Random House Mondadori, S. A. Rosa dels Vents.
REAL MERCADAL, Neus (2005). Mercè Rodoreda: l’obra de preguerra. Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat. Biblioteca Serra d’Or, 344.
source:https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merc%C3%A8_Rodoreda_i_Gurgu%C3%AD
