Josep Pla (Palafrugell, 1897 – Mas Pla de Llofriu, 1981). The Catalan writer is more read and popular of all periods, and he dedicated all its life to the literature and to the journalism. He began working on his complete works in 1956, and returned to the job in 1965. It comprises more than 45 volumes, approximately 20,000 pages of prose.
Like other Catalan writers, he was a man steeped in French culture; his literary models are Stendhal and Proust, although he was influenced ideologically by Leopardi, Voltaire and Montaigne.
From an early age, he considered literature as a profession. As a journalist, he worked as a correspondent in France, Italy, England, Germany and Russia, where he wrote political and cultural articles. Compared with the Noucentisme model, his style, from the time of Cosas vistas (1925) onwards, represented a novelty in terms of its naturalness, and also because it made literature more accessible to a wider public.
His work has become a valuable record of half a century of Catalan society, landscape and life, halfway between reality and fiction. For political and ideological reasons, he is the writer who has aroused the greatest controversy, above all because of his alleged links with the fascist camp during the Spanish Civil War. As a result, from 1969 onwards, the jury repeatedly refused to award him the Premi d’Honor de les Lletres Catalanes.
Josep Pla won the Serra d'Or Critics' Prize four times, and two years before his death, the Government of Catalonia awarded him the Medalla d’Or. Today, his work is constantly being republished.
Josep Pla in front of his Library. Mas Pla, Llofriu, 1922.
Unknown author
Josep Pla Foundation, col. Josep Vergés
For more information about Josep Pla, visit the Josep Pla Foundation website.