Posts by Josep Carles Laínez
Música junto al río
In some of the poems of Música junto al río, I mix three languages: Spanish, Valencian, and the residual Castilian-Aragonese of my region, Alto Palancia. However, this is not the most outstanding characteristic of the book, but each of the three sections responds to different aesthetic assumptions. When I reread this volume, I had mixed…
Read MoreBerlín
When we were about to start rehearsing Berlin with the actress Carmen Rodríguez, the director, Alberto Sala, suggested me to modify some fragments, lest… The piece is a monologue that puts on stage Eva Braun, Adolf Hitler’s wife, in her last hours in the bunker where she died (or committed suicide, or was assassinated…). The…
Read MoreEl mayor de los milagros
The play El mayor de los milagros by Antonio Tello de Meneses, a practically unknown author of the 18th century, had been unpublished since its composition. It was edited by José de Jaime Gómez, José María de Jaime Lorén, and myself, who was in charge of its literary study. It is not a piece of…
Read MoreAnxia
With Anxia, I obtained the highest of the prizes I have been awarded: the “Roís de Corella” of poetry in Valencian of the Literary Awards “Ciutat de València” in 2000. It was also published by Bromera, the publishing house par excellence as far as Valencian literature is concerned. There are two sections of the book…
Read MoreExtranjero en su patria y otros poemas políticos
Joan Larzac (1938) is one of the greatest Occitan writers of the 20th century. Author of fundamental works at the time, such as the essays Per una lectura politica de la Biblia (1973) and Descolonisar l’istòria occitana (in two volumes, 1977 and 1980), his collection of poems L’estrangièr del dedins e autres poëmas politics (1972),…
Read MoreShipwreck
Shipwreck are fragments of a lost epic poem. They were originally written in English in the early 1990s, at a time when I was on the verge of deciding to write in English. It was published by poet and artist John M. Bennett in a beautiful edition. Shipwreck, Columbus (OH), Luna Bisonte Prods, 1999.
Read MoreDeseyos batalers
Deseyos batalers [Deseos de par en par] responded to my eagerness to close loose ends. It is a small volume in which I collect the articles I published in Aragonese in the weekly Siete de Aragón (and one in Fuellas) at a time when the former was published in newspaper format and gave plenty of…
Read MoreDel luxe del ras vora les fraules
A short piece, also a monologue, in which there are certain vampiric traits in the character, and an unhealthy pedophilic attraction. Del luxe del ras vora les fraules [Of the Luxe of Satin Next to the Strawberries] could also function as a short story, but this work is linked to a writing that approached the…
Read MoreElsa metálico
Elsa metálico inaugurates my “Theatre of Silence,” an anti-theatrical aesthetic bet for which I chose the Asturian language. Two characters who have nothing to say to each other engage in a dialogue full of silences; in them, it seems that I am only looking for the audience’s despair, but that is not the case. I…
Read MoreCuentos de adolescencia
This book is the translation of a possible translation, although there is nothing clear about it. One of the first mentors of Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (1867-1928) was Constantí Llombart (1848-1893), and thanks to his help, the great genius of our literature wrote three short stories in Valencian, and published them. It is not known exactly…
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