Poet, grammarian and translator, as he likes to present himself, Albert Jané (Barcelona, ??1930) has won the 56th Premi d’Honor de les Lletres Catalanes “because he has worked tirelessly for the Catalan language, with essential contributions in the field of children’s and youth literature, as well as the translations and adaptations of stories, legends, rondallas, fables, popular narratives and comedians, which have trained children and young people in reading in Catalan”, in the words of the Òmnium Cultural jury, which has announced the award at the Espai Abacus in Barcelona.
And Jané’s public career is marked above all by her important work at the Cavall Fort magazine, which she joined in 1963 and directed between 1979 and 1997. From there, among others, she translated and gave her name to the untranslatable Schtroumpfs , the smurfs, the barrufets in Catalan, which have given him popularity and prestige – relative and limited, too – among all audiences.
When the president of Òmnium, Xavier Antich, announced the award, he highlighted that Jané is “one of the great people responsible for taking the normative language from the fossilized state in which it was until it became a living language close to the speakers of his time. , which is ours, and he has done so with contributions to the language from many sides”, since in addition to translation he also taught Catalan during the Franco regime, he has written grammars, dictionaries, narratives, diaries and poetry. A work, however, that both Antich and Jané himself have regretted is not available to readers. “I have to admit that it feels bad to me, but the cake to share is what it is, and I am positively surprised by the number of books that are published,” he said, to remember that he has a lot of unpublished fiction and diaries, and that many of his books “have been guillotined”, including the thesaurus – “which fortunately the Institut d’Estudis Catalans digitized and made available to everyone”–. Antich recalled that the award-winner’s work includes “more than 60 books, 200 translated works and more than 150 translated comic albums,” and insisted on the anomaly that “an entire Honor Award has hundreds of unpublished texts.” Among his published works, for example, is the monumental novel Calidoscopi informal (Edicions de la Ela Geminada, 2018), of more than 1,400 pages.
Jané, who will receive the award on June 17 at the Palau de la Música Catalana, has taken credit for herself, because at 93 years old, “the years go by, and if you work, there comes a time when you have done many things. I have been irregular, but always with a guiding idea, fidelity to the language and the country.” He has also stated that “looking at the list of winners, I saw him very, very far away, which excites and surprises me,” and he wanted to insist that although his name often appeared in books or in Cavall Fort, it was a work of team, and has mentioned the name, for example, of Joaquim Carbó or his successors in management, Mercè Canela and, currently, Mònica Estruch. He also wanted to recognize linguists such as Joan Solà and Josep Ruaix, whom he considers to be continuators of Pompeu Fabra’s work, a quality that in fact Antich has attributed to him: “As Joan Martí says, Jané is the most faithful and qualified successor.” of the grammatical work of Pompeu Fabra”, remembering that there are many Catalans who learned the language with some of the grammars he published: already in 1961 he collaborated on the Signe grammar, and later he dedicated a few more books to the subject.
Unlike many linguists, however, he was self-taught, because he studied commercial expertise – and worked in banking until he joined Cavall Fort –: “I trained by reading. “My father was a barber, an enlightened worker.”
Marta Nadal, member of the jury with Judit Carrera, Raül Garrigasait, Àngels Gregori, Ingrid Guardiola, Maria Rosa Lloret, Clàudia Pujol, Salvador Sunyer and Enric Vicent, thanked him for being “a link that unites the past, the present and the future because he keeps working.” Garrigasait has also highlighted: “He is one of the great examples of the generation of heroes, those who saved Catalan under the boot of Franco. And they were not heroic heroes, but humble heroes who worked.” But Jané, displaying that humility, answered: “I didn’t consider myself a hero or a clandestine, I did everything very naturally.” He has even tried to take credit away by explaining that much of the work he has done “was not his own initiative, but was commissioned,” whether it was grammars or translations or Cavall Fort himself, which “is a miracle, and even more so considering that today “A children’s magazine has to fight against cell phones and screens.” The magazine continues, yes, and Jané still writes – by hand, in the residence where he now lives – every day.
Catalan version, here
