Baltasar Porcel was a volcanic man, capable of being friends with the King and Jordi Pujol, and at the same time being fascinated by a fanzine or praising a marginal edition book in the column of La Vanguardia. In his residence in Vallvidrera – which we can place in descriptions of his novel Les pomes d’or -, the Majorcan narrator and journalist showed you his art gallery, with a special predilection for Bartolozzi and Arranz Bravo, but unfailingly we he directed towards the only photograph on display, a portrait of Bakunin, for which he felt devotion. It should not be forgotten that one of his important journalistic books was La revuelta permanente, Espejo de España prize in 1978, an interview portrait of 20th century anarchism with the exiled Cenetista Joan Ferrer Farriol, with whom he spent many afternoons in Paris from 1970.
After his death in 2009, like most writers here, Porcel has gone into limbo. I remember the will to fight the cancer that took his life, which contrasted with the articles he had written about sleepless nights and admissions to the hospital for simple indigestion. Faced with the perplexity of friends and strangers alike, the managers of the select magazine Jot Down have decided to rectify this unjust omission and republish in Spanish the complete novel by Porcel – originally published in Catalan, and translated in editions now out of circulation – within the collection ‘Los libros rescatados’, under the direction of Majorcan Basilio Baltasar (novelist, essayist and director of the Formentor Foundation) and promoted by the Sevillian publisher and head of Jot Down magazine, also a publisher, Ángel L Fernández I remember.
The first three titles have already appeared, the translations of Les pomes d’or, Cavalls cap a la fosca’ and Difunts sota les ametllers en flor, in sober trade format editions that are very good to read. In the first two cases, existing translations have been used and in the last one, a new one has been commissioned from Teresa Galarza Ballester.
Basilio Baltasar vindicates the role of Catalan literature through this great exponent: “I don’t know what to attribute a phenomenon that has persisted in the field of Spanish cultural customs: the resounding admiration for Anglo-Saxon letters and the tireless celebration of translations that move their cultural machinery”, he says. He goes on to explain that it is probably the result of a sincere cosmopolitan curiosity and a gesture of generosity towards the acclaimed authors in English. “His narrative is enthusiastically accepted as if it were the sign of the times, the voice of the modern world, the genius of fashion, the dictation of trends: what must be read. This openness of views, of such refined snobbery, this cultural hunger, contrasts sharply with the lack of interest that has often been aroused by the translations of literary works written in Catalan”.
The director of the Formentor Foundation states that this anomaly deserves a corporate psychoanalysis: “To what should we attribute the apathetic historical indifference to Catalan literature? Are translations from this language considered a ‘second-hand’ genre? Do silent cultural conventions assign him a secondary rank? Porcel’s work is a good example of this strange omission, the invisible wall, the diffuse reluctance”.
Basilio Baltasar reiterates that Porcel’s powerful narrative work can compete in splendor with any “foreign” rival and yet it never awakened the reading passion it deserves. “Perhaps this indolence will be the result of an anonymous and deep-rooted prejudice? The symptom of a presumptuous disdain?”. Basilio Baltasar concludes that this is why the interest of the editor of Jot Down in Porcel’s work is so revealing: “It has awakened a genuine interest, the impetus that his work needs to reach the reader in Spanish . It’s an excellent opportunity.”
It all begins with the edition of Sergio Vila-Sanjuán’s biographical essay, El jove Porcel, a detailed approach to the gestation of Porcel’s work in the sixties, territory that the biographer has explored on different occasions. He points out that Porcel’s narrative is particularly timely because it combines the lyrical descriptions of the landscape with the epic, more given to action and violence. At this intersection, Porcel explodes as did Hemingway, one of his references. Porcel could describe a landscape as in a watercolor and two pages later immerse us in a scene of torrid sex or military combat.
Fernández Recuero remembers that the idea “came about after attending some talks in Formentor where Vila-Sanjuán spoke about The Golden Apples. I encouraged myself to read Porcel’s vast narrative work, acquiring almost all the books second-hand. I asked Basilio Baltasar for advice on recovering his work and he put me in touch with the heirs who welcomed the project very well. Together with Basilio, we devised the “Los libros rescatados” collection.
With own funds and awaiting support from the Ramon Llull Institute for the new translation of Difunts sota les ametllers en flor’ and from the Ministry of Culture for the next publication of The Argonauts, Fernández explains that “publishing Porcel connects with Jot Down’s mission to discover authors and their work, without formal or content limits. They are almost always authors who are taking off but, also, with the ‘Los libros rescatados’ collection we want to focus on those who, like Porcel, have enormous talent but are largely unknown to our readers. ” At the end of the first cycle, the flaps already announce the appearance of new works while maintaining the intention to publish up to the last ones written by the author of Andratx. Titles such as Cavalls cap a la fosca, Les primaveres i les tardors or L’emperador o l’ull del vent are the pinnacle of a unique work that deserves to be recovered and read.
Baltasar Porcel The golden apples, Horses into the night and the dead under the almond trees in bloom Editorial Jot down