This literary return several publishing houses are betting on novelties related to the history of art. Pablo Picasso’s stay in Gósol in the spring of 1906 put the charming Berguedà municipality on the map forever and changed his way of painting forever. Iñaki Rubio describes this journey and its implications in Pau de Gósol. Picasso in the Pyrenees (Comanegra). This is a book that links to what has already been read in these hot months. In the same publishing house, Joan Safont has presented L’estiu passat, about the summer holidays of artists and writers such as Mercè Rodoreda, Pere Calders, Montserrat Roig or Josep Pla, but also about Picasso himself or Joan Miró in Mont-roig del Camp .
Without leaving the Romanesque that inspired the Málaga painter, Lluís Domènech Girbau and Teresa-M. Sala retraces in From the book that Lluís Domènech i Montaner did not write (Edicions UB) the study excursions that the architect made to prepare the first history of Romanesque art in Catalonia. A volume that did not see the light of day, but from which the authors recovered texts, files, drawings, plans and unpublished photographs. The same publisher publishes History of a hidden Gaudí. The banner of the Orfeó Feliuà. Xavier Jové and, again, Teresa-M. Sala, they reconstruct the creative process of the piece in the context of the time.
A little further into the season, Sylvia Lagarda-Mata will publish Catalonia, land of bandits (Angle Editorial), where she collects historical facts, biographies and legends of banditry and its impact throughout the entire Catalan geography. The reader will find names such as Perot Rocaguinarda, Serrallonga, Panxampla, Toca-son… In the same line of recovering one’s own heritage, be it oral or architectural, Carles Cartañá and Jordi Longás present Catalonia: 50 medieval castles (Cossetania). It is a large-format book with full-page color photographs, which fulfills several functions, from presenting its history and function, to providing ideas for excursions and going to meet them in person.
As always, there is no shortage of books related to the Civil War. In Érem feres (Pagès Editors), Oriol Riart presents the direct experience of the soldiers who lived through the conflict through their personal diaries and a careful reading of the impressions, fears, needs and emotions that the combatants leave in writing at the same time of the facts. The historian Daniel Díaz-Esculies also investigates in Vida i mort dels Catalans en les fronts guerres, 1936-1939 (Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat) daily life in the republican ranks with a volume that treats, with all cruelty, from Catalanophobia to sex and the role of women at the front based on primary sources. Also, at the beginning of October, Tigre de Paper will collect the texts and ideological evolution of Joaquím Maurin. The publication coincides with the 50th anniversary of the death of the renowned leader of the POUM during the thirties.
In the field of vindication of the role of women in history, to which, fortunately, more and more work is being devoted, two novelties stand out. Medicine in women. From medieval remedies to turpentines. With a collection of herbs and remedies (Cossetania). A book by the expert in medieval literature and culture, Glòria Sabaté, which pays tribute to these women transmitters of ancestral knowledge. And likewise, Elle, the women, were also there. Female correspondents by Víctor Balaguer (1848-1896) (UB Editions). Montserrat Comas recovers the letters of some women who wrote to Víctor Balaguer and from there she discovers the social network of the politician and historian from a female perspective and the intellectual work of the women who were part of the liberal environment Balaguerian
It is also a recent novelty, a book that many readers have already begun to enjoy. The trading card fever (Comanegra) by Josep-Manuel Rafí about Xocolates Boix and the history of the old Catalan and European advertising card that seeks to become the benchmark for Catalan chromolithography. After years of research, the author explains how the very history of the democratization of knowledge and artistic expansion is hidden behind the advertising sticker. A fascinating journey through almost a thousand representative cards from the main historical collections.
Among all the novelties, however, the book called to generate debate, on an always fashionable subject, is Overdue but not submitted (Edicions 62). In the shadow of his own previous studies and also of the threads outlined by Ernest Lluch, Joaquim Albareda, delves into a thread of continuity. The UPF professor explains that once the institutions of Catalonia were abolished in 1714 and despite the repression and chronic corruption by the military and the new authorities, many Catalans continued to dissent and protest, they demanded alternatives to absolutism and they did not lose the memory of freedoms. The new overview of the 18th century presented by Albareda dismantles clichés and will make people talk.
