Joaquim Ruyra
Joaquim Ruyra i Oms | |
---|---|
Born | Girona, Catalonia | 27 October 1858
Died | 15 May 1939 Barcelona, Catalonia | (aged 80)
Occupation | Writer, poet |
Notable works | Marines i boscatges, Pinya de rosa, La parada |
Joaquim Ruyra i Oms (Catalan pronunciation: [ʒuəˈkim ruˈi.ɾə]; 27 September 1858 – 15 May 1939) was a Catalan short-story writer, poet and translator, considered a key figure in modern Catalan literature and one of the great narrators of the 20th century.[1][2]
Besides his literary work, he was also aware of
Life
Descending from rural owners and lawyers, he studied law in the University of Barcelona between 1875 and 1881, but never practised to dedicate himself completely to literature. Ruyra spent most of his childhood and youth between Girona and the coastal town of Blanes, in the comarca (county) of la Selva, where he settled after marrying Teresa de Llinàs in 1889, although the couple also had a residence in Barcelona and Arenys de Mar.
Blanes became the main location of his works and there he came into contact with the local dialect (salat) and the genuine spoken language of fishermen and peasants, that afterwards he incorporated into his writings. In an interview with Tomàs Garcés in 1926, Ruyra said:
Blanes is my history, my homeland, the place for which I have greatest affection. I have lived there almost all my life. I got married there, my parents died there. It is only fair, then, that almost all my memories are of Blanes.[3]
In the summer of 1928, the cork oak forests of his propierty in the Gavarres massif were devastated by a large wildfire. This episode, that affected the wood-and-sea landscape that inspired his major writings, eventually marked the end of his literary career.
During the Spanish Civil War he was first dispossessed of his patrimony and later honoured on his 80th birthday with an official ceremony organized by the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes. He died discreetly in May 1939, in the midst of the war, and was buried in the Blanes municipal cemetery.
Work
Although in his youth he started writing in Spanish, seen at that time as the language for cultural purposes, he soon swifted to his
Ruyra cultivated many different genres such as narrative, poetry, drama, essay and
Ruyra wrote three chapters of an unfinished novel (La gent del mas Aulet, 1904), the
Influence
Ruyra was in the vanguard of the
Nowadays Ruyra's memory is fondly remembered in his hometown Blanes, where the Town Hall promotes a multilingual literary route that explores different sites that inspired and feature in his short stories, such as the
Since 1963, the
References
- Enciclopèdia Catalana(in Catalan). Retrieved 3 May 2020.
- ^ Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. Retrieved 23 October 2020.
- ^ a b Reyes, Antoni; Roger, Aitor (2020). Route Joaquim Ruyra (PDF). Blanes: Blanes Town Hall.
- Association of Catalan-Language Writers(in Catalan). Retrieved 23 October 2020.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-856-68605-4.
- ^ ISBN 9788499841236.
- ISSN 0211-0563– via Dialnet.
- ^ "Joaquim Ruyra's route". Blanes Costa Brava. Blanes Town Hall. Retrieved 24 October 2020.
- Enciclopèdia Catalana(in Catalan). Retrieved 24 October 2020.
External links
- "Joaquim Ruyra i Oms" at the Association of Catalan-Language Writerswebsite (in Catalan).
- Joaquim Ruira at LletrA, Catalan Literature Online (Open University of Catalonia). (in Catalan).
- Works by Joaquim Ruyra at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Website of the Joaquim Ruyra's Literary Route by the Blanes Town Hall.