Marta Pessarrodona y Artigues (born November 18, 1941) is a Catalan poet, storyteller and literary critic. She has also written essays and biographies. She is the author of books such as ''Primers dies de 1968'' (1968), ''Setembre 30'' (1969), ''Vida privada'' (1972), ''Memòria'' (1979), ''A favor meu, nostre'' (1981), ''Tria de poemes'' (1994), and ''L'amor a Barcelona'' (1998). In 1997, she received the

Creu de Sant Jordi The Creu de Sant Jordi (, in English language, English 'St George's Cross') is one of the highest civil distinctions awarded in Catalonia (Spain), surpassed only in protocol by the Gold Medal of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Gold Medal of the G ...

Biography

Marta Pessarrodona y Artigues was born in

Terrassa Terrassa () is a city in central-eastern Catalonia and in the province of Barcelona (Spain). It is one of the two capitals of Vallès Occidental county, being the larger in both area and population. The name ''Terrassa'' derives from Latin ''Te ...

Vallès Occidental Vallès Occidental () is a Comarques of Catalonia, comarca (county) in the Àmbit metropolità de Barcelona, Barcelona region in Catalonia (Spain). It has two capitals, Sabadell and Terrassa. Along with Vallès Oriental, it forms the historical Va ...

, November 18, 1941. In 1986, she became a lecturer in Spanish at the

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public research university in Nottingham, England. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. Nottingham's main campus (University Park Campus, Nottingh ...

. She has coordinated the International Commission for the Diffusion of Catalan Culture, in the Department of Culture of the Generalitat de Catalunya.In 2010, she was conducting research on the at the National Archive of Catalonia. Pessarrodona has written several works on

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...

and the

Bloomsbury Group The Bloomsbury Group was a group of associated British writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists in the early 20th century. Among the people involved in the group were Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster, Vanessa Bell, a ...

, and has translated,

Susan Sontag Susan Lee Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, critic, and public intellectual. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on "Camp", Notes on 'Ca ...

Doris Lessing Doris May Lessing ( Tayler; 22 October 1919 – 17 November 2013) was a British novelist. She was born to British parents in Qajar Iran, Persia, where she lived until 1925. Her family then moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where ...

Erica Jong Erica Jong (née Mann; born March 26, 1942) is an American novelist, satirist, and poet known particularly for her 1973 novel ''Fear of Flying''. The book became famously controversial for its attitudes towards female sexuality and figured pro ...

Simone de Beauvoir Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir (, ; ; 9 January 1908 – 14 April 1986) was a French existentialist philosopher, writer, social theorist, and feminist activist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, nor was she ...

, and

Marguerite Duras Marguerite Germaine Marie Donnadieu (, 4 April 1914 – 3 March 1996), known as Marguerite Duras (), was a French novelist, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, and experimental filmmaker. Her script for the film ''Hiroshima mon amour'' (1959) ea ...

. Her poetry is realistic, without apparent rhetorical artifice, often sententious and

ironic Irony, in its broadest sense, is the juxtaposition of what, on the surface, appears to be the case with what is actually or expected to be the case. Originally a rhetorical device and literary technique, in modernity, modern times irony has a ...

; it usually arises from meditation or memory. She regularly writes articles in ''

Avui ''Avui'' (; ) was a Catalan-language daily newspaper, based in Barcelona, Catalonia. It was one of the city's newest papers, having been founded in 1976. The editorial line was Catalan nationalist. History and profile ''Avui'' was first publi ...

'' and ''

El Temps ''El Temps'' (; 'The Times') is a weekly newsmagazine, published in Valencia by ''Edicions del País Valencià'' since 1984. It is distributed throughout the whole Països Catalans. It is edited by Eliseu Climent. The publication has offices in ...

''. In 2007, an

anthology In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs, or related fiction/non-fiction excerpts by different authors. There are also thematic and g ...

of her poetic work was published. She writes in Catalan.

Awards and honours

In 1997, she received the Creu de Sant Jordi from the

Generalitat de Catalunya The Generalitat de Catalunya (; ; ), or the Government of Catalonia, is the institutional system by which Catalonia is self-governed as an autonomous community of Spain. It is made up of the Parliament of Catalonia, the President of the Govern ...

. For her works published in 2010, the collection of poems ''Animals i plantas'' and the essays ''Francia: enero 1939. La cultura catalana exiliada'' and ''L’exili violeta'', she was awarded the (2011). In 2019, she received the

Premi d'Honor de les Lletres Catalanes The Premi d'Honor de les Lletres Catalanes (Catalan Literary Lifetime Achievement Award) is an award instituted by Omnium Cultural since 1969 to recognize a person by their scientific or literary work, written in Catalan language, the importance of ...

, awarded by the association

Òmnium Cultural Òmnium Cultural () is a Spanish association based in Barcelona, Catalonia. It was originally created in the 1960s to promote the Catalan language and spread Catalan culture. Over the years it has increased its involvement in broader political i ...

. A library in Mira-sol neighborhood of

Sant Cugat del Vallès Sant Cugat del Vallès () is a town and municipality north of Barcelona, Catalonia. Known as ''Castrum Octavianum'' in antiquity (which means ''the castle of Octavianus'') and as ''Pins del Vallès'' during the Second Spanish Republic, it is nam ...

is named in her honor.

Selected works

* Primers dies de 1968 (1968) * Setembre 30 (prologado por Gabriel Ferrater, 1969) * Vida privada (1972) * Memòria (1979) * A favor meu, nostre (1981) * Berlin suite (1985) * Homenatge a Walter Benjamin (1988) * Les senyores-senyores ens els triem calbs (1988) * Nessa: narracions (1988) * Tria de poemes (1994) * L'amor a Barcelona (1998) * Fauna (1994) * Barcelona, una nova ciutat europea (1995) * Montserrat Roig: un retrat * Maria Aurèlia Capmany: un retrat * Frederica Montseny: un retrat * El segle de les dones (2002) * Virginia Woolf in the Midlands (Londres. Anglo-Catalan Society, 2004) * Caterina Albert: un retrat, amb fotografies de Pilar Aymerich (Institut Català de la Dona, 2005) * Mercè Rodoreda i el seu temps (2005) * Donasses. Protagonistes de la Catalunya moderna (2006). * Poemes 1969-2007: Antologia (Editorial Meteora, 2007) * Animals i plantes (Editorial Meteora, 2010) * França 1939. La cultura catalana exiliada (2010). * L'exili violeta (Editorial Meteora, 2010) * A favor nostre. Antologia de poemes i pròleg a cura d'Àngels Gregori (Godall Edicions, 2019)

References

External links

Marta Pessarrodona
at escritoras.com

at mallorcaweb.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Pessarrodona, Marta 1941 births Living people People from Terrassa Women storytellers Spanish storytellers Spanish women literary critics Spanish women essayists Spanish women biographers 20th-century Spanish women writers 21st-century Spanish women writers Premi d'Honor de les Lletres Catalanes winners Catalan-language writers Academics of the University of Nottingham