The writer, interpreter and translator from Ebrán Yannick Garcia (Amposta, 1979) has won the first Aurora Bertrana prize for the translation of one of the great classics of universal literature, the novel Pride and prejudice, by Jane Austen.
The author joins the other winners of the Premis Literaris de Girona, convened by the Fundació Prudenci Bertrana, who were awarded tonight at the Auditori de Girona, and whose names were already announced last June.
In the family photo of the prize winners, there are the media writer Martí Gironell, winner of the Prudenci Bertrana prize for the novel for The manufacturer of memories, which has as its protagonist the traveling photographer Valentí Fargnolí, one of the outstanding portraitists of the early 20th century; and the poet Anna Gual, who made poetry with Miquel de Palol with the mystical poem book Les ocultacions.
Also part of the great family of this year's Premis Literaris de Girona are the writer and historian Joan Esculies, awarded for an essay focused on the figure of Josep Fornas, a trusted man of President Josep Tarradellas, and the winners of the Ramon Muntaner de youth literature, Arturo Padilla and Rubèn Muntañà, whose four-handed novel features a "special" 15-year-old teenager.
Today the name of the Lletra award for the best digital project was also announced, which was awarded to Sofía Malagón for her initiative to "de-stigmatize" Parkinson's and improve the lives of patients suffering from this neurodegenerative disease through reading and theater.
The Cerverí award for best song lyrics went to the Ludwing Band, a band from Espolla (Alt Empordà), which portrays a very hot topic in its lyrics: the depopulation of rural areas.
The writer and translator Yannick García admitted this morning during the traditional press conference prior to the awards ceremony that the translation into Catalan of Pride and Prejudice "has been a small ordeal" due to the added responsibility involved in translating the most famous of the Jane Austen novels.
"I had to think and rethink each sentence because I felt the pressure of being analyzed with a magnifying glass," said Garcia, who began translating the work at a difficult time, days after confinement due to the coronavirus.
A translation job that, as he explained, has made him change his vision of the influence that the classics can have on new audiences. "He was unaware of the reception that Jane Austen would have in each generation; he thought that she would not reach new audiences but he was wrong," said the author who has published the work with La Casa dels Clàssics.
The author competed among more than 700 titles of works that were translated into Catalan during the year 2021, of which the jury of this first Aurora Bertrana award chose eight finalists. A newly created award that Garcia applauded. "It is a recognition of a trade and profession, that of a translator, which rarely goes on stage," he stressed.
With El fabricant de records, whose protagonist is the itinerant photographer Valentí Fargnoli, who during the first decades of the 20th century traveled Catalonia on his bicycle portraying the life of cities and towns of the sea and mountains and their inhabitants, Martí Gironell (Besalú, 1971 ) portrays the life of a "fascinating man".
"Walking photographers like Fargnoli were memory makers; photos treasure moments that are memories," Gironell says. The author of Besalú explains that throughout his career Fargnoli portrayed wealthy people and humble families, and photographed the visits that King Alfonso XIII made in Catalonia. And he even got special permission to photograph the wedding of King Alfonso XIII with Victoria Eugenia on May 31, 1906 in Madrid.
"But those photos never saw the light of day and it is from there that I weave the story of The Record Maker," explains Gironell. Fargnoli's visit a few days before his death to another photographer's shop in Girona with a box full of "unpublished and compromised" photos is one of the guiding threads of this novel edited by Columna and which can now be found on the bookstores.
The poet from Vilafranca del Penedès Anna Gual (1986) has won the 45th edition of the Miquel de Palol Poetry Prize with her eighth collection of poems Les Ocultacions, edited by Proa, an award that this year has increased its financial endowment to 6,000 euros. She has done it with a compilation of mystical poems.
"It is a song in favor of the mystery, of what surrounds us but we hardly perceive because of the rush and our day to day," the author explained this morning at a press conference. An autobiographical collection of poems at times in which "the honesty of the stories predominates."
Gual explained this morning that he uses free verse "because it makes me feel comfortable to say what I see" and that he has always written "from intuition".
The writer and historian Joan Esculies (Manresa, 1976) has won with his work on the figure of the politician and publisher Josep Fornas (1924-2021), a key piece of the anti-Franco movement and restorer of Catalan politics and culture, the Carle Rahola Award of essay
Esculies explained that "hardly" without the figure of Josep Fornas, President Josep Tarradellas would have returned to Catalonia. "He was his antenna in Catalonia in terms of information and he also got him money to survive in exile," he explains.
Esculies also highlights his involvement with Catalan culture and politics. He was the founder of the publishing house Pòrtic; collaborator of the Catalan State and the Communist Party; Democratic Union activist and ERC deputy between 1980 and 1984. Fornas was also a "great bibliophile" and assembled a huge library on the history of Catalonia.
Special Neighbors, a novel written in four hands by Arturo Padilla (Montornès del Vallès, 1989) and Rubèn Montañá (Badalona, 1983) is a story narrated in the first person by a "very special" 15-year-old who must face numerous bumps like the separation of their parents or unrequited love.
Its authors have not wanted to reveal what makes the young protagonist "special" and different; a particularity that is not clear in the novel dearly. "Despite everything, the protagonist is happy and relativizes the problems. It is a novel that plays with humor without falling into victimhood," say its authors.
