Joaquim Mallafrè (Reus, 1941-2024), translator of some of the great works of universal literature such as James Joyce’s Ulysses or Tristram Shandy’s Life and Opinions, which he revised a few months ago, has died at the age of 83 in Reus, city ??where he was proclaimed an illustrious son and where he lived all his life, as reported this Thursday by the Reus Reading Centre, an organization of which he was a member and in which he was very active. Professor of translation at Rovira i Virgili University, his translation of Ulysses became legendary, since despite the importance of the work it did not yet exist in Catalan. He was also a member of the Philological Section of the Institute of Catalan Studies.
His translations, also of Sterne or some of Samuel Beckett’s plays, as well as numerous children’s and youth books, will remain forever, as will also remain in the memory the exciting reading of his Ulysses in the Calders bookshop, in June 2020, which he finished himself, having just arrived by train that morning.
In an interview with La Vanguardia a few months ago, the translator recalled how José María Valverde awakened his interest in more risky literature, and how he actually started translating to learn English better. In that same conversation, he explained how the literature he liked best, the challenges and the linguistic game had a specific weight, and he also took the blame for not having written his own literary work, because at the end of the day “everyone is simply made for certain things”. However, he had published some books, such as the collection of articles De bona llengua, de bon humor (Columna, 1994) or the essays Léngua de tribu i lengua de polis (Quaderns Crema, 1999) and Uns i otres. Literature and translation (Arola, 2016).
