Salvador Espriu was born in 1913. A member of the so-called generation of ‘36—those who were in their twenties at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War—Espriu became a voluntary exile in his own land. Writing in a forbidden language, hyperconscious of his historical moment, he took upon himself the task of saving Catalan for his people. In this bilingual edition, with a preface by the translator and an introduction by Francesca Vallverdú, Espriu’s friend and Spanish publisher, Magda Bogin has given us a glimpse into a remarkable body of poetry from a poet whose literary stature in Spain is akin to that o William Carlos Williams and T. S. Eliot in the English speaking world.
“At last, a translation that does long overdue justice to the noble poetry of Salvador Espriu, one of this century’s great lyric elegists.” —William Arrowsmith
