One day a writer of a co-official Spanish language will win the Nobel Prize for Literature. And it is most likely that he will do it through Hispanic. Let me explain: among the pipelines that lead to the literary Nobel, there has been a consistent Spanish pipeline in Stockholm for more than a century. Every now and then the tap is opened and a new Nobel laureate of Hispanic letters emerges. Saramago also benefited from this channel. For decades the Portuguese tried on our own with good authors, like Miguel Torga, but without any success. Meanwhile, there was a moment in Saramago's career when, living in Lanzarote, married to a Spanish journalist and sympathetic to the Iberian union, he was almost as Spanish as Portuguese. And here came the Nobel.
In fact, there is currently a real policy, on the part of the Cervantes Institute and sectors of the current Government of Spain and the previous one, to defend the co-official languages. It is not just the calculation generated by the well-known need for Catalan, Galician and Basque votes. We are dealing with a fundamental strategy: to assume the multiculturalism of the country. And a nice corollary of this project would be that one day an author of one of the co-official languages would be awarded in Stockholm.
Having said that, literature in Catalan has already won, a long time ago, the prize that really interests us: that of being an important and consistent reality. This is due, not to Scandinavian laurels, but to the wonderful tingling of so many people who, throughout the centuries, did not stop using this language to tell us about their lives and their souls. Great writers, whom we all know, but also less famous authors who are the real humus of a literature: people devoted to their art and capable of very beautiful works. Today I want to talk to you about three present examples of these tireless builders of literature in Catalan.
First of all, Àlex Susanna, recognized in Catalonia, but, in my opinion, not enough. He is a great poet, whose ideal is to form columns of Romanesque art with his verses. Sobriety and depth, therefore. After the anthology Dits tacats (2018), in which the reader was presented with a panorama of all his lyrical work since 1978, Susanna is preparing to surprise us with a new collection of poems scheduled for September: Tot és a tocar . The author also stands out for the magnificent diaries, especially the most recent series consisting of Landscape with figures (2020), El món en suspenso (2022), which will be completed with La dansa dels dies, scheduled for this January, and The most unexpected year, which will arrive in September.
Another indefatigable author, but who is placed on completely different scales: Sebastià Bennasar, a Mallorcan writer settled in Catalonia. With it, we dive into the world of the noir novel and the genres considered most popular. Bennasar nurtures an unbridled love for literature and, in his narratives, even in the detective stories, there is always someone trying to build a career as a writer, dialoguing with people who love to read.
His writing is of meridian clarity and has the same nuclear reactor energy typical of Pla's work: new works of his are always coming out. In addition, the author feels and practices an exquisite love for Portugal. Three works to get to know this writer: Nocturne de Sant Felip Neri (2013), L’amant secreta (2023) and the collection of short stories Macondo Beach (2019).
And another great author: David Jou, excellent poet and very stimulating essayist, especially for the way he treats the relationships between science, religious experience and poetry. Jou has a Renaissance profile: he is a man of science with a university degree, but at the same time someone capable of the best lyricism, to which is added the weight of his spiritual adventure. Undoubtedly, it would have a lot to do with Leonardo Da Vinci.
And, despite this, it is quite unknown in 21st century Catalonia. As a gateway to his work, I recommend reading the poetry collection Cant espiritual (2017), which functions as one of the last and most brilliant links in a mystical chain that, from Ramon Llull through Jacint Verdaguer and Joan Maragall, covers all literature in the Catalan language.
I think that the reader, as it happens to me, must already be a little overwhelmed by the atmosphere of haggling, sometimes almost obscene, that has settled in the current parliamentary majority. And it's a shame because this Government can boast of building a plurinational Spain, one of the hidden challenges of the 1978 Constitution and a beautiful collective horizon. The Sánchez Cabinet does not insist on it much because it knows that, among its own majority, there are groups for whom this ideal means nothing. Together, for example, can be compared to that lady or gentleman who get into bed with someone, clarifying from the outset that it is not a serious relationship and that they are only interested in the pleasures (benefits) of the moment.
The panorama of the political bloc that governs Spain today consists of a mixture of corrosive and polluting cynicism, on the one hand, and, on the other, of stubborn and admirable idealism, an alloy with which it is not easy to get along. One would ask the current rulers not to forget that, in the long run, what will save them will be generous idealism because that is what gives real meaning and vigor to what they are doing.
In this brighter framework, if the Spanish State were able to successfully promote authors of the Catalan, Galician or Basque languages towards the Nobel Prize, bright paths of hope would open up for national coexistence. It may sound strange now, but I think it will happen.
