Just a month and a half ago, José María Martí Font published in this section an obituary of the cultural activist He was referring to the generation that in the late 60s and early 70s of the 20th century embodied in Barcelona an alternative ideology, now alien to doctrinal bodies, close to underground culture, of which Martí Font himself, who died on Monday, in Barcelona after years of courageous fight against cancer, he was a participant and a singular figure.
Born in Mataró in 1950, trained in the Jesuits, Martí Font studied Law and Economics at the University of Barcelona between 1967 and 1973, before entering the alternative scene and participating in cultural initiatives such as the G or Mec-Mec galleries, that energized the plastic scene in the late Franco era. After these tasks he went on to develop other journalistic tasks, in underground publications such as Star, Disco Express, Vibraciones or Ajoblanco. His apartment in the Alhambra building on Berlinés Street, a construction of Arab inspiration located in Sant Gervasi, which he rented with the plastic creator Àngel Jové, soon became one of the meeting points of his generation. Until, at the end of the 70s, attracted by the hectic culture of the United States, Martí Font undertook his adventure in that country, with prolonged stays first in New York, where he frequented the Catalan artistic colony, and then in San Francisco or Los Angels.
It was in this Californian city, where he went attracted by the film industry with the purpose of writing scripts for Hollywood, where he strengthened his collaboration with the newspaper El País, for which he became a correspondent. After his return to Spain, in 1984, he worked in the Madrid editorial office of said newspaper, where he carried out management tasks in the International and Culture sections. After five years, he again felt the desire to get to know other realities and took charge of the correspondent in Bonn (1989-1994), from where he reported on the fall of the wall, to then occupy the Paris correspondent (2004-2009). .
Although he made his debut in the cultural field, and never lost his connection with it, Martí Font had a curiosity without borders and was interested, in addition to cinema or music, in education, sports or politics, accumulating extensive knowledge in fields so disparate, that he administered with journalistic diligence and also very naturally and with a certain discretion, without putting on any kind of airs.
The fruit of his work are, in addition to numerous journalistic chronicles, books such as The day that the 20th century ended (Anagrama, 1999), After the Wall (Galaxia Gutenberg, 2014), The Spain of the cities (ED Libros, 2017) or Barcelona -Madrid (ED Libros, 2018). And, to another extent, his teaching in the Master of International Journalism at the Pompeu Fabra University, or his presidency of the Association of European Journalists of Catalonia.
With a fearless spirit, but at the same time an intelligent, honest and affable person, with a gift for languages and a great capacity to process reality, Martí Font has been, in addition to being a valuable journalist, an esteemed travel companion, one of those people whose enriching company will not be forgotten by those of us who enjoyed it, even though it now contributes, involuntarily, to the swan song of a generation that opened new paths.