Salvador Espriu

Considering how much poetry the great Catalan writer Salvador Espriu wrote, a representative selection is a tall order for any translator. Louis Rodrigues has limited his choice to a hundred poems, in order to highlight some of the more notable and original features -- features which challenge the ingenuity of the translator. Yet the conceptual rigour and precision of the ideas expressed and the haunting rhythms which are captured here are more than a shadow of the original. Espriu's mission was to make the Catalan language sing and survive the bleak years when Franco insisted that a unified Spain required a single tongue and forbade the use of the other national languages. The vigour -- intellectual and lyrical -- of Espriu's poems was and remains an inspiration and a consolation to all Catalan speakers.