Prudenci Bertrana i Comte (;

Tordera Tordera () is a city in the comarca of Maresme, province of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, situated 64 km from Barcelona and 36 km from Girona on the edge of the Montnegre natural park. Its population as of 2010 was 15,641. The economy use ...

, 19 January 1867 -

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

, 21 November 1941) was an important

modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

writer in Catalan.

Biography

During his youth, he studied at

Girona Girona (; ) is the capital city of the Province of Girona in the autonomous community of Catalonia, Spain, at the confluence of the Ter, Onyar, Galligants, and Güell rivers. The city had an official population of 106,476 in 2024, but the p ...

. Some years later, he went to Barcelona to pursue a course in industrial engineering and managed such magazines as ''

L'Esquella de la Torratxa ''L'Esquella de la Torratxa'' was an illustrated satirical weekly magazine, written in Catalan language, Catalan. Published in Barcelona between 1872 and 1939, it was well known for its republicanism, pro-republican and Anti-clericalism, anti-cle ...

'' or ''

La Campana de Gràcia ''La Campana de Gràcia'' (; "Gràcia's bell") was a seminal Catalan weekly magazine of satire, written bilingually in Catalan and Spanish of the late 19th and early 20th century, staunchly supportive of republicanism and anticlericalism. The head ...

''. He worked as a journalist and also taught art. Bertrana also collaborated with other newspapers such as ''

El Poble Català EL, El or el may refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities * El, a character from the manga series ''Shugo Chara!'' by Peach-Pit * Eleven (''Stranger Things'') (El), a fictional character in the TV series ''Stranger Things'' * El, fami ...

'', ''

La Publicitat LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second most populous city in the United States of America. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music *La (musical note), or A, the sixth note *"L.A.", a song by Elliott Smit ...

'', '' Revista de Catalunya'' and ''

La Veu de Catalunya ''La Veu de Catalunya'' (Catalonia voice) was a Catalan newspaper founded by Enric Prat de la Riba that was published in Barcelona from 1 January 1899 to 8 January 1937, with two editions daily. It was the press organ for the ideological and p ...

''. His style is certainly distinguished in relation to the fashions of the moment. He is quite known because of his novel ''Josafat'' (1906), the book with which began his literary production, and also for his short story collection ''Proses bàrbares'' (''Barbarous prose'', 1911). He published his first stories in 1903, and some of them have been considered of an excellent quality. His works (specially short stories) are based on three principal aspects: landscape, peasants and animals. Bertrana's novels, structured from a careful and detailed observation of the world, are grounded in his own life experience as a writer and a man of his time. It is, however, with the trilogy ''Entre la terra i els núvols'' (''Between the Earth and the Clouds''), comprising ''L'hereu'' (''The heir'', 1931), ''El vagabund'' (''The vagrant'', 1933) i ''L'impenitent'' (''The unrepentant'', 1948), where an autobiographic purpose is most clearly reflected, based on his personal frustration, the hardest part of which was the death of three of his sons. In 1933 he won the

Fastenrath Award Two institutions grant the Fastenrath Awards: Fundación Premio Fastenrath awards writers of Spanish nationality and their Spanish works and Premi Fastenrath for Catalan works. Both were instituted with the posthumous legacy of Johannes Fastenrat ...

for his play ''El Comiat de Teresa'' (''Teresa's Farewell'', 1932). He died in 1941 in Barcelona. His daughter

Aurora An aurora ( aurorae or auroras), also commonly known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly observed in high-latitude regions (around the Arc ...

's memoir, contains many references to her father.

References

External links

Prudenci Bertrana in LletrA, Catalan Literature Online (Open University of Catalonia)
* Audiobooks i
LletrA

Josafat
'
Short Stories
* Writers from Catalonia 1867 births 1941 deaths Modernisme writers Catalan-language writers Burials at Les Corts Cemetery {{Catalonia-writer-stub