Josep Carner

Retorn a Catalunya

Language: catalan

Translations: english (Return to Catalonia), spanish (Retorno a Cataluña)

Retorn a Catalunya

Ja veig damunt la terra de foc el nostre pi.
Oh gent, que per les feixes daurades feu camí!
em sobta com un vi
la força tota vella i humil que ens agermana.
(És viu com la ginesta i com el blau marí
el teu escarafall, oh noia catalana.)

Com somrieu en hores del vespre, masos blancs,
entre pallers de bona companyia,
i cada mas ateny en curta rodalia
bosquet i blat i vinya i un marge amb tres pollancs.

Voldria, tot perdent-me per valls i fondalades
dir tes llaors, oh terra de salut!
enmig de coses fosques i vides oblidades
com aquest grill que canta dins un camí perdut

Josep Carner

photo © Universtitat Oberta de Catalunya

* 09.02.1884, Barcelona, Spain
† 04.06.1970, Belgium

Josep Carner (Barcelona, 1884 - Brussels, 1970) is known as “the prince of Catalan poets”. He renewed poetry, language and prose and created a new style of political journalism. He graduated in Law and in Philosophy and Letters and embarked on a diplomatic career, during which he was posted to Genoa, San José in Costa Rica, Le Havre, Hendaye, Beirut, Brussels and Paris. During the Spanish Civil War, he remained loyal to the Republic and thereafter never returned to make his home in Catalonia.

photo © Universtitat Oberta de Catalunya

Carner’s collection of poems Els fruits saborosos (1906, Flavoursome Fruits) is regarded by critics as one of the landmarks of Noucentisme, the movement which he was a leading light of. His work evolved towards Post-Symbolism in books such as Auques i ventalls (Cartoons and Fans), El cor quiet (The Quiet Heart) and Nabí. He was also renowned as a translator of authors such as Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Arnold Bennett, Alfred de Musset, Jean de La Fontaine, Daniel Defoe and Lewis Carroll. In 1910, when he was just 26 years old, he was proclaimed Master of Gay Science at the Jocs Florals poetry competition.

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