Blai Bonet 
Author

Poems

Original

Übersetzung

Soledat oberta catalan

Translations: en

to poem

Déu company catalan

Translations: en

to poem

Autoretrat catalan

Translations: en

to poem

Crist de Port-Royal catalan

Translations: en

to poem

Maria Magdalena catalan

Translations: en

to poem

Blai Bonet 
Author

photo © C Eloi Bonjoch
* 10.12.1926, Santanyí, Spain
01.12.1997, Santanyí, Spain

Blai Bonet was born into a humble family in Santanyí in 1926. At the age of ten, he entered the Catholic seminary of Palma, where he became acquainted with the Classics, Philosophy, and the Humanities. A lung illness caused him to abandon his ecclesiastical career and marked all his subsequent work. During his stay in the Caubet sanatorium, he started to write his novel The Sea, which had a deep impact when it appeared. His first poetry also dates from these early years. He died in his home town of Santanyí in December 1997, after some years of isolation from all literary circles.

 photo © C Eloi Bonjoch
The work of Bonet (poetry and novel) is very much associated with light and colour. Light, as a metaphor of God, and colour, as the passions of light (Goethe): hence, poetry as the colour that gives character to life. Bonet once said that “my intention when I write is to illuminate those who read me”. Bonet’s work is also a meditation on God and human life, and offers a certain prophetic vision within the current of Christian existentialism. In regard to this relationship between God and man, Bonet also reflects on sin and its epitome, Judas, a recurrent figure in his poetic and novelistic universe. The poet, according to Bonet, explains the world through synthesis and, as a repository of Art, is called on to dispel darkness from mystery.

Publications
  • Quatre poemes de Setmana Santa

    1950

  • Entre el coral i l'espiga

    1952

  • Cant espiritual

    1953

  • Comèdia

    1968

  • L'Evangeli segons un de tants

    1967

  • Els fets

    1974

  • Has vist, algun cop, Jordi Bonet a ca n'Amat a l'ombra?

    1976

  • Cant de l'arc

    1979

  • El poder i la verdor

    1981

  • Teatre del gran verd

    1983

  • El jove

    1987

  • Nova York

    1991

  • El mar

    1958

  • Haceldama

    1959

  • Judes i la primavera

    1963

  • Míster Evasió

    1969

  • Si jo fos fuster i tu et diguessis Maria

    1972

Awards
  • 1952 Óssa menor Prize for Cant espiritual

  • 1965 Carles Riba Prize for L'Evangeli segons un de tants

  • 1988 Lletra d'Or Prize for El jove

  • 1987 Premi Nacional de la Crítica i de Poesia de la Generalitat de Catalunya for El jove

  • 1992 Premi Ciutat de Barcelona for Nova York

  • 1956 Joanot Martorell Prize for El mar

  • 1963 Premi Ciutat de Barcelona for Judes i la primavera