La mort i la primavera by Mercè Rodoreda

As with her other writings, it portrayed the failure of human relations, especially between the sexes, in some ways a reflection of her own experiences. In 1962, she published La plaça del Diamant ( The Time of the Doves), her most celebrated work and a masterpiece of Iberian literature. A collection of short stories, Vint-i-dos contes, won the Victor Catalá prize in 1957. She found little pleasure during a visit to Franco-controlled Barcelona and decided to live in exile, first in Paris and later in Geneva. When the Second World War ended, Rodoreda took up her writing again. When Obiols, who was married, refused to break with his wife, Rodoreda felt used and betrayed by her own love for him. In exile, she became the mistress and housekeeper of Joan Armand Obiols, another Catalan writer. A supporter of the socialists and the Republic, she fled to France when Francisco Franco and the Nationalists triumphed in 1939.

The Spanish Civil War interrupted her writing and her life. Rodoreda finished five novels (she later disowned four of them, retaining only the Crexells prizewinning Aloma ) and a number of short stories in the mid-1930s. After separating from her husband, she began writing, using Catalan rather than Spanish. As a teenager, she married her mother's brother, with whom she had a child. Born in Barcelona, Spain, on Octo(some sources cite 1908) died in 1983 married and separated children: one.īorn in Barcelona on October 10, 1909, Mercè Rodoreda was only allowed to attend school until age nine and often lamented her lack of formal education.

La mort i la primavera by Mercè Rodoreda