During the time of confinement, the editor Jordi Carulla-Ruiz held online tai-chi sessions, during which Miquel Àngel Cabrer told him about some little-known books about wisdom and spirituality, which sowed a seed which has germinated in Tres Portals, a new label that is now launching with the publication of three books that are a manifesto of the desire to bring these “jewels of wisdom” from both Western and Eastern culture and various literary registers closer to readers , in Catalan and Spanish, according to the titles, and always with an e-edition stamp.
On the one hand, they publish in both languages ??The tradition of tears, by Jean-Paul Iommi-Amunatégui, a historical and literary essay that analyzes crying from the European spiritual tradition, taking into account authors such as Ramon Llull, Joan Lluís Long live Saint Teresa of Jesus or Malevich. As Carles Duarte – who is part of the label’s advisory board with Cabrer, Manel Ollé, Almudena Blasco and Guillem Usandizaga – explains, the book allows “deepening the longing for union with God”, with the tear as a “spiritual representation and bridge between the human being and God”.
They have also published in Catalan The Prince and the Monk, by the 12th century Catalan Jew Avraham ben Xemuel ibn Khasdai, which adapts the story of Barlaam and Josaphat from the Arabic, which is also based on the life of Siddharta Gautama, the Buddha. According to its translator, Tessa Calders, it is a sample of the great baggage of Jewish culture in Catalonia, which resulted in “an unattainable amount of texts”. Calders also points out that unlike the Christian versions – the characters of Barlaam and Josaphat came to be considered saints in the Middle Ages – and Muslim versions, in this “there is no proselytism”.
The third book with which they inaugurate the publishing house is Camino al cielo. Encuentros con ermitaños chinos, by Bill Porter (Los Angeles, 1943), who after spending four years in a Buddhist monastery in Taiwan wondered if there were still Buddhist and Taoist hermits left in the Chinese mountains, and how best to find out was to go find them. And Porter finds them, talks to them and if the book, published in the United States in 1993, had a relatively discreet first reception, when it came out in China it became a reference and has sold more than two million copies. Porter – who presents the book at Casa Asia in Madrid on Wednesday, and at the CCCB in Barcelona on Thursday – explains that in recent years he has even met some hermits who only had one book: his.
Porter recalls that in China “hermits are part of society”, they have prestige among other reasons because after a few years of retirement they return to help others with what they have learned. However, the author – also known by the Buddhist name of Red Pine, with which he signs his translations – is clear that “all cultures are a system of deception”. The author recalls that today, “in China there is a spiritual revolution, and it is led by women”, who can make up to 70% of the hermits, who although they do not have the explicit support of the authorities they do tolerate them and even, in some cases, worship them, although this happens more with the Buddhists, since “in the long Chinese history behind all the revolutions there were the Taoists – and put the example of Falun Gong – and that is why today the regime is watching them especially, because they are afraid that they will lead a revolt”.
Ollé, professor of Chinese Studies at the UPF, explains that the idea of ??the label is to open an “intersection space” for classic and ancient texts, but also contemporary ones, that find “readers with spiritual but also literary interest”. He is in charge of the translation and the foreword of one of the upcoming books, already in September, Notes on the painting of the monk Bitter Gourd, by Shitao.
